


Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

by TheShadowsAreNotWatching



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Coming of Age, Families of Choice, Gen, LGBTQ Themes, Male-Female Friendship, asano gakushuu joins class E
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24208912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShadowsAreNotWatching/pseuds/TheShadowsAreNotWatching
Summary: “Rivals,” Hazama says, “can be gay.”“I would argue rivals are especially gay,” Fuwa seconds.“It’s about the eroticism of maybe wanting to commit violence,” Hazama says.“Or Naruto!” Fuwa chirpingly agrees.“I am not gay for anyone, especially a rival, which I don’t have,” Asano argues. “Also, I’m not quite certain what Naruto’s about, but I feel confident it’s not gay.“That’s where you’re wrong,” Fuwa says. “Also, did you have no childhood. Don’t answer that.”OR: Hazama Kirara and Asano Gakushuu build a friendship consisting of mocking others, gothic parental murder fantasies, and the horrible ordeal of being human and vulnerable and stuff.
Relationships: Hazama Kiara & Terasaka Ryouma, Hazama Kirara & Asano Gakushuu, implied Akabane Karma/Asano Gakushuu, implied nakamura rio/hazama kirara
Comments: 159
Kudos: 477





	1. Chapter 1

Later, Hazama will say that she told them so, that she was right about the omens forecasting doom.

(… Hazama, you say everything is an omen forecasting doom

Hazama will arch an eyebrow at this and make the Class E hand-signal for Koro-sensei. Terasaka will sigh, point taken)

Hazama is a firm believer she deserves credit for this prediction. The signs this time were for sure subtler than the moon exploding. 

  
  
  


The first warning sign was when they couldn’t find Asano to gloat at after the pole-topping competition. Not that Hazama cared about the event, or anything, she definitely was reading her book and not cheering at Itona’s vertical leap. But that evening, Tersaka was complaining to Yoshida about the missing class president. 

“---coward probably just doesn’t want to show his face after his complete failure,” Terasaka bitched.

“Mmm. Probably.” Yoshida said. “Although hey, the pervert-poet said he’d been called into a meeting with the principal. Maybe he was too busy crying to daddy.”

Hazama said nothing, of course.

  
  
  


The second warning sign was Karma complaining in between class periods after Midterms. Akabane sat near the Terasaka gang, either for easier access to mock Terasaka or because delinquents of a feather flocked together. Karma had placed third, which was impressive considering the deep backslide Class E did after not studying for a couple of weeks. 

Akabane apparently wanted to mock the main campus for his superiority, but couldn’t find Asano and his crew. Or, strangely, Asano on the ranking lists at all. Akabane was trying to convince his minion (and his minion’s minions) that they should go stalk out the Asano house and harass him.

The boys sputtered in protest of getting too close to where the principal lived, assuredly a den of darkness, despair, and danger.

Hazama flipped a page in her book and noted that down as well.

(both Asano’s absence and Karma’s rant on not seeing him. And being annoyed that two of his lessers, Saikabara and Araki were rivaling him. She noted it in her same mental file of that time Karma stroked Terasaka’s stomach when undressing him.)

Technically the third warning sign was less of an omen and more of an announcement. But Hazama had a feeling what was going to happen when, at the end of the day, Karasuma-sensei stood up.

“Class, tomorrow there will be a new transfer student. It is completely unconnected to the assassination mission your class has been given.” The teacher said. Tiredly. As always.

Hinano raised her hand and asked, “Isn’t it too late in the year for an academic transfer? Why are they coming here?”

“The principal informed me they had violated the student code of conduct.” Karasuma informs them. As evidenced by Isogai’s almost expulsion, Kunugigaoka’s honor code wasn’t something to be trifled with. Hazama had her own suspicions on some of the rules (there to enforce social control), some of the prescriptivist behavior (“students should show no signs of delinquent or antisocial behavior”), and some of the assignments to Class E.

“What, did someone pull a Takebayashi and break another precious trophy?” Karma snarked.

“I am only telling you this because the Principal suspended this student two weeks ago and made an announcement yesterday officially relaying the details to the main body. But apparently, due to use of narcotics, Asano Gakushuu will effective immediately be joining Class 3-E.” 

There was a brief moment of silence. Then Nakamura stage-whispered, _damn, he got demoted five class levels for failing at pole-topping_. And then pandemonium broke out. 

…

Later, at 2130, the Tersaka gang (plus a Takebayashi, summoned after furious texting) met at Muramatsu's place. Technically, Muramatsu bitched about always hosting the moochers, but practically, he always volunteered to close up shop, which means practically, he always agreed to let them loiter inside. 

Itona furiously slurped down “slightly less shitty ramen” (Muramatsu started using him to test-taste some of his recipe ideas) while the rest of them discussed the latest bombshell.

Or, more honestly, they listened while Terasaka ranted.

“This is the last thing we need! This is probably, a _ploy,_ a, uh, a _scheme_ from the principal.”

“...to do what?”, asked Muramatsu, foolishly encouraging him. 

“Kill the octopus! Get the billions for himself,” Teraska said. 

“Isn’t the principal a rich stock trader? Who, according to Karasuma’s subordinates stress-mutterings, has already extorted the government for billions?” Hazama weighed in. She had her own theories and she didn’t buy Terasaka’s. 

“No, look, it’s brilliant--” Teraska starts, ignoring the groans from his friends/subordinates/loyal mockers. “--You know if class E makes the news or whatever for killing the octopus, people are going to start flocking to Kunugigaoka. And then they’re going to start asking questions. Like why the fuck does a school keep its middle schoolers on a secluded mountain and allow a moon-destroying a monster to teach them.”

They all paused a moment to appreciate Terasaka’s point. Yoshida whistled, “damn, bro, that’s pretty smart. Did you come up with this? Has Korosensei been teaching you logic or something?”

“I have brains!” Teraska protests, forgetting they’ve been in classes with him for three years. “I can know things.”

“Yet, usually you don’t,” Itona weighs in. “But I don’t fully understand your point. Now, instead of looking like a negligent educator who risked the lives of teenagers, he looks like a negligent educator and father who risked the lives of teenagers, including his own son.”

“Depends how the media spins it,” Muramatsu chimes in. “Brave Principal Willing To Trust Humanity’s Future in Prodigy Son”

“Other students were there too,” Terasaka finishes snidely. “I’m not having some elitist class A fuck waltz in here looking down on us and steal away the money. Fuck that bullshit. Either you’ve been here, and suffered being at the bottom of the pile, or you get the fuck out.” 

Itona moves to stand “--I’ve been here like three weeks, so I guess I’ll get going, Leader Terasaka. Muramatsu, thanks for the gross ramen.” 

“Oi, sit back down pipsqueak, we’re not done talking yet.” Terasaka grumbles. 

“You do not like this Asano fellow. He is coming tomorrow anyways. What’s more there to talk about?” Itona asks reasonably. 

“Four-eyes over here has the most experience with the weasel. I want to know his thoughts.”

At this Takebayshi looks up, having not paid a bit of attention over the course of the discussion and instead stayed focused on reading some dense math book. Terasaka keeps pushing him to come with them after the transfer fiasco, but doesn’t particularly care if he does anything with them or not. Mostly, she thinks, Terasaka wants to get him out of his parents house and be somewhere where he won’t be lonely. 

“I admire Asano-kun quite a bit.” Takebayashi says. “He’s very hard-working and ambitious. He pursues his goals single-mindedly with no hesitation whatsoever.” 

“Yeah, yeah he’s nerd boner bait,” Teraska says. “But what’s his motivation? Why is he doing this.”

Takebayashi frowns and says nothing. He takes off his glasses and rubs them, he looks if he’s debating whether or not he should say anything. His gaze lingers on Terasaka and sharpens. He makes his judgement and goes in for the kill.

“I can tell you three things I observed about Asano-kun and his relationship to the chairman. One, the chairman only refers to his son by his last name. Two, Asano-kun told me, when discussing specifically the subject of being sent to class E, “the chairman even when dealing with his own son, doesn’t hold back. You have to keep your guard up against him each and every day”” 

“And?” Hazama asks. “That’s two things.”

Takebayashi shrugged, “he looked scared when I destroyed the trophy.”

Terasaka said sharply, “he tried to get Isogai expelled because he was poor. And he totally cheated with the foreigners.”

“I’m not saying he’s a good person,” Takebayashi says. “But I do not know if he has a say in his… demotion.”

“There’s no fucking way that nerd did drugs,” Terasaka says, with all the confidence of a 15-year old who’s smoked weed twice. 

“He could probably benefit from getting high. Might distress him enough to dislodge that stick up his ass,” Yoshia chimes in, with all the confidence of a 15-year old who's never smoked weed. 

Takebayashi, now in the discussion, seems reluctant to leave it or let it die, starts, “I was offered adderall once by a peer in one of my cram schools. I declined of course, but the promise of staying focused and awake longer was very tempting.” 

Hazama thinks some of Takebayashi’s stringent defense of Asano Jr might be personal. She wonders if he sees himself, in a more successful future, one of Asano’s minions looking down at class E. She wonders if he sees himself justifying the lengths that some people would go for parental love.

She thinks it’s sort of pathetic. 

‘I think you’re all missing something a lot more pressing when it comes to Asano’s new membership in class E.” she says, and waits for all of her boys’ heads swivel towards her. “Where are the open seats in our classroom?”

She sees it when the lightbulb goes off in their heads. Asano will, on the first day at least, be sitting a seat down and two the left from her. Meaning, he’d be sitting next to Karma.

“Oh man,” Murumatsu says. “Think the principal will kill us if his son dies on the first day?”

“Honestly, I’m more worried about Asano killing Karma. We just saw that the dude has mad martial arts skills and Karma could drive a saint to murder,” Yoshida says. 

“Either way, there’ll be death!” Hazama says cheerily. Well, cheerily for her anyways.

It’s getting late and some of them would like to make it back home before curfew. They leave Murumatsu’s place and start walking home, Terasaka and Takebayashi chatting a little bit about a cafe they went to, which Terasaka insists was totally not-sketchy at all, while the rest of the gang makes fun of them.

Eventually they have to part. Yoshida turns right, Itona and Terasaka keep straight. Takebayashi and her both live across the river, near a nicer part of town, so they turn left to cross the bridge. It’s remarkable the differences in homes within a fifteen minute walk from each other. She thinks both her and Takebayashi are a little jealous of the laughing, retreating forms Itona and Terasaka. 

They’ve never announced anything to the class or to the gang, but Hazama knows that Itona has probably moved into the Terasaka residence. She knows Terasaka complained about the shitty, lonely hovel that was the only place Itona could afford after the government ditched him. She knows that Terasaka has bunk-beds and a warm, loving family, always happy to host guests for unspecified amounts of time. She knows Terasaka is an incurable mother hen who worries without his chicks roosting in plain sight.

When they’re walking back, Takebayashi asks her a question. ‘You’re versed in psychology, right, Hazama-san?” 

“Psychological abuse, psychological horror, psychics, psychology. They’re basically the same thing,” she says.

“I’m curious to what your thoughts are on all of this.” He says politely.

She pauses. “Terasaka adopts him before winter break. I’d put money on it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First day, part 1.

Kirara leaves home early that morning, eager to be Hazama again. She inhabits her ill-fitting name like she inhabits her house. There are ways to get through it. Ways to grin it and bear it, to go along with her mother’s ridiculous flights of fancy. 

But there are other times when it’s impossible. 

Last night, when her mother screamed, cried, and yelled for her having the audacity to be seven minutes  _ early  _ to her curfew was the former. She simply stared at a point over her mother’s shoulder and thought of a delightfully grim take on a fairy tale involving a banshee while her mother shouted about respectability. Then there was this morning, which was the latter scenario. Her mom stole her current tome away from her and threatened to cry until Hazama did something about her hair, and put on some make up. Hazama was apparently breaking her heart.

Hazama doesn’t say what she thinks which is, if I spent one second longer on my hair, if I dolled myself up, if I put on a nice pink lipstick, put some care into my clothes, then that would all add up to more time in this house and that would be intolerable. Hazama would probably look more like the Kirara her mother wished she had, if her mother tried just a little less hard.

At least, Hazama supposes, she has the irony.

It’s not uncommon for Hazama to get to class on the early side. She used to play truant with the squad, but quite frankly there’s nowhere they really could go that’s better than class right now. She mostly just wants to read in peace, and the mountain provides her that.

But this time she sees something interesting when walking up the mountain. Namely, their new acquisition looking up at the base of the mountain with a blank look on his face. 

Hazama, obviously, doesn’t say anything to him. He doesn’t say anything to her although he looks at the book she’s holding and his eyes brighten minutely.  _ Finally _ , she thinks,  _ someone with taste _ . She’s read  _ The Count of Monte Cristo _ enough times that she can read and walk at the same time, although alas, can’t yet read and hike.

Asano doesn’t say anything, but she does note that he follows her path up the mountain. In the spirit of generosity and also, because she wants to know what the fuck is going on, she lets him follow her path instead of sprinting up with parkour. 

She might’ve been too generous though when he comes up to speak with her. 

“Is this the quickest way up the mountain?” he asks. They’ve never actually formally met. She wonders if he knows who she is. On the other hand, him introducing himself does seem slightly stupid. 

“We’ve recently gotten trouble for unauthorized parkour,” she says. “Until you’ve been given the padded uniform, I think it would be unwise to lead you on a path where… unfortunate accidents could occur.”

“I am sure I could manage,” he says, matter-of-factly. He’s smiling, a little bit, like he thinks it makes him seem charming. She wonders if he really thinks he can get away with the prince act in class E. Hazama’s overwhelming urge to push him into mud is one she hasn’t felt since she first met Terasaka. 

“Nonetheless,” she says and leaves it at that. They continue to hike, but she’s unsurprised when he breaks the silence again.

“So, is the monster a good teacher? It seems like he must be,” he asks.

“Korosensei is very good., she confirms. “That was one of the reasons why Takebayashi transferred back, he said he found the main school’s instruction... lacking. Too slow apparently.” 

“I’ve complained of the same myself. Does the… government assigned task get in the way?” 

“No, not really inside of the classroom. Outside, sure, but we don’t have extracurriculars anyways,” she says. She’s been expecting winces, but instead it seems like when she hits closer to her mark, he gets blanker and frostier. Like he’s retreating himself and dragging whatever’s left of his personality deeper inside. Fun. “You haven’t been asking the questions I thought you would.”

“What do you mean?” he says, princess-perfect polite. 

“You haven’t asked for his weaknesses.”

“Does he have any?” he asks, like he’s genuinely curious about what the answer might be.

“Yes. But not many.” 

“I know the government is involved. I assumed they sent their best killers. It seems unreasonable that middle schoolers could perform better,” he’says this without commitment. She’s not sure how much he actually believes it. 

“Class E is not the typical middle school class, he’s not the typical target,” . 

He hums and says nothing. They walk in silence until they reach near the top of the hill. “By the way, Hazama-san, where are you in your book?”

“It’s a reread, I’m still in the best part,” she says.

“The part about abandoning revenge was so trite. A pity, I found detailed vengeance fantasies…. Inspiring,” he says. Is his attempt to manipulate her into liking him by appealing to her taste obvious? Yes. Is she a little flattered anyways? A tad. Not enough to be, satan forbid, nice to him or anything. But enough to wrench a modicum of pity from her stomach. 

“I completely agree. I’m glad to find out that someone else in our class appreciates the classics. It’s almost a pity what’s about to happen to you.” 

She nods to the nearby-figure of their lurking teacher who approaches, probably to give Asano some speech about love or friendship or something. Horrifying. 

…

The morning happens in a mostly unsurprising manner. Asano introduces himself in front of the class during homeroom, says he’s excited for the new opportunities the class offers. He doesn’t even break character when half the class starts rolling their eyes and/or laughing. He does add that he understands they’ve had less than favorable encounters, but he hopes that they can all come together with this new common goal.

He does flinch a little bit when Korosensei points to where he’d be sitting. Karma actually giggles. It’s actually fairly frightening. 

He gives her a small nod. She gives him an amused look. She wouldn’t save him even if she could. 

“So, junkie-kun, was your drug of choice cocaine or heroin? And where did you buy it, I’ve heard some great things about the newest sedatives,” Karma stage-whispers sweetly. 

Asano breaks his pencil. 

…

Asano makes it through to lunch without punching Karma in the face. She notes that Muramatsu slips Yoshida money under the desk. 

Asano appears to be studiously taking notes despite the fact, and this is technically just a feeling, that Mr Number One Student in Japan probably knows the material already. Karma appears to be taking notes on what insults make Asano react the strongest, based on the series of smiley faces she can see he doodled in the margins of his journal.

(Drugs, his poor leadership abilities, and his foreign friends seem to have drawn the strongest reactions-- a tensing of the face or the slightest raise of a lip indicating a snarl. Karma’s provocations about student government, his father, or “the fact that you clearly kick puppies since you were mean to  _ Isogai _ ” did not seem to provoke the intended reaction according to what she can decipher from a quick strategic glance at the smiley faces.)

Then, it’s lunch, and although they usually go outside to eat, Hazama has a feeling that a) people would be coming to their corner to talk and b) Terasaka would want to stay.

Annoying. 

Two people make a beeline towards Asano, at the opposite end of the respectability scale.

“Welcome to Class E!” Isogai sparkles. Kataoka walks up, just a beat later and stands behind him, smiles. She says that they should talk. Asano possibly(?) grimaces. Karma writes something down.

“Welcome to Class E,” Teraska sarcastically says. “We need to talk.”

“Yes?” Asano asks to the three students by his desk and the flock of on-lookers. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re up to. I don’t know what the fuck your creepy family is planning. But if you even think about betraying us, we’re going to destroy you.” Terasaka repeatedly points and uses his height to tower over Asano. Really, Hazama thinks, he never learns.

“Rest assured I am planning nothing of the sort,” Asano says soothingly. 

“That’s exactly what someone planning on betraying us would say,” Karma helpfully chimes in. 

“I understand our historical antagonism, I stoked it as much as the next person. However, we all have a common goal and common enemy, so I want to work together with you all for the next few months,” Asano says.

“Fucking what do you mean stoked,” Terasaka says. “Takebayashi told us about the speech  _ you  _ wrote.” Asano turns to him and just smiles, politely, blankly. As if to question what his point was. 

“Korosensei isn’t exactly our enemy,” Kataoka says, “but it’s good to know you take the end of the world seriously.”

“Yes him too,” Asano says. “Our homeroom teacher.” 

“Aw, you mad daddy sent you down to be with the losers?” Karma taunts.

“I choose to appreciate the chances for my personal growth.” Asano says. 

“That’s a great way of looking at it,” Isogai says. He’s being very sincere, which is the worst part. 

“Defeat motivates growth,” Karma confirms. “Although I’ve lost a lot less than you after our bet, maybe you should consider growing more.” There’s a slight twitch forming by Asano’s eye at those words. 

“I don’t recall you ever defeating me, Akabane.” Asano says. “You mistakenly believe that you’re my greatest rival in this class.”

“What, do you have a nemesis in Class E? Do you have a foe who you send death threats on nice stationery with neat handwriting?” Karma snarks. 

“Isogai defeated me in both social studies and in pole-toppling,” Asano says. “Nakamura beat me in English by one point. Okuda beat me in science. You’ve…?”

“Technically, I haven’t declared myself to be your rival,” Karma says, although Hazama swears she sees a blush. “You’re just fun to harass.”

“You should take notes on things other than me if you want to beat me.” Asano says. “I could share, if you like, I’m fairly proud of my outline. There’s color-coding.” 

Karma whips out his notebook, “actually, Asano-kun, I think if you used a web format you could more clearly show the flow of ideas that Korosensei talked about. You know, this unit has a lot of links to previous material. I like to make sure my notes reflect connections. I could share, if you like.”

Hazama shouldn’t be too surprised, Karma’s been clearly putting more effort in since finals. Nonetheless, the perfection of Karma’s notes are impressive, and made more impressive by the fact he could take them and do his Asano-anger marginalia at the same time.

“You know,” Asano says, fake thoughtfully, “I actually remember being beaten in culinary arts as well by Hazama-san and her friends. I feel like four people is too much for an epic rivalry, but if I am truly desperate for some friendly competition, maybe they’re the people to ask.”

“Why do you say Hazama and friends?” Terasaka complains. “Don’t try to charm her, it won’t work.”

“It won’t,” she confirms.

“Don’t steal my minon’s minions,” Karma says. “He needs those. You have your own minions.”  He pauses, for dramatic affect. “Or I guess had.”

“Karma, we understand you have no sense of shame--” Kataoka says. Not, meanly or anything. Just matter-of-factly. Karma nods his head and graciously motions for her to continue on. “--but I remember how hard my first day in Class E was. Maybe be less antagonistic.” 

“He tried literally two weeks ago to get Isogai expelled for being poor, he wrote a speech slandering us to the student body, and according to Sugino, he was going to make us sign a weird BDSM contract.”

“What?” Asano reacts to that last one. “Who told you that? That didn’t happen at all.”

“I don’t know, something about Pervert Poet being creepy and a contract making us do whatever you say.” Karma says. “I-D-K, that’s what I heard.”

“Those were two separate things. I knew you were hiding something and I wanted to know what in order to have leverage on the principal,” Asano says.

“Well. You know now!” Isogai laughs.

“I will admit I did not expect ‘the government is paying for middle schoolers to be trained as assassins so to kill their homeroom teacher, an octopus that destroyed the moon,’” Asano says, “that was a surprise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got an outline of about 15 chapters, and I've written 7, so assuming my motivation doesn't jump out of a window, I think I should manage biweekly updates on Mondays and Fridays.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First day, part two.

Asano chats a bit more with Kataoka and Isogai. She assumes they had class representative meetings together, so they at least have some measure of familiarity with each other. Isogai is warm with Asano, like he hadn’t just tried to ruin his life for the sake of middle school clout, because of course he is. Kataoka on the other hand seems more guarded. She’s fiercely protective of class E and it’s clear where she thinks Asano stands on the us-them continuum.

Hazama wonders if Asano will manage to close the gap before graduation. An interesting prospect. 

She turns to her idiots. They’ve discovered some new video game and are animatedly discussing character options, although Itona is mostly insulting other people’s choices. Terasaka is furiously trying to finish homework although taking occasional glances to look up at and glare at Asano.

“Hey, Terasaka, you used a wrong preposition here,” she points out. Tersaka grumbles and switches the o to an i. “It’s unlike you to be so concerned about your assigned schoolwork.” 

“Shut up. I don’t want to be called out like some sort of an idiot in front of….” Terasaka mutters. 

“Wasn’t he the guy who stole your pal Koyama? He knows. It’s unlike you to care about someone’s opinion so much.” Hazama says.

“I don’t like that he’s not facing consequences for the shit he’s pulled,” Terasaka says. “I want him to know if he pulls shit again, I’m gonna be the consequence.” 

“Isn’t being in class E a consequence?” Hazama asks.

“All the octopus is going to do is a speech blah blah learning from failure blah blah here’s some self-esteem blah friendship.” 

“Is that the speech he gave you when you almost got us all killed,” Hazama points out drily. 

“Almost word for word,” Terasaka confirms. “Also, I totally fucking faced consequences. This bitch over here hit me really hard with his head noodle---” at this Itona doesn’t stop his conversation, but gives a thumbs up “--and I had to work for Karma. And then I redeemed myself when I taught this bitch the power of friendship.” Itona turns his thumbs up to his hand flatly waving, clearly demonstrating his “eh” at Terasaka’s statement. Terasaka proceeds to give up on his homework and argue with Itona about his totally amazing speech that convinced Itona to give up evil.

With Terasaka no longer doing homework, Hazama feels the world right itself again. But as the lunch period runs out, she realizes she has one more thing to say.

“You know, if you’re thinking about dark storm clouds ahead for him, I think you’re going to be very pleased very soon,” Hazama says. Terasaka just blinks at her. She sighs. Her boys and hints, star-crossed, narry shall the twain meet. “Terasaka, he’s fresh bait for Bitch-sensei.”

“He speaks like, four languages as every fucking nerd from class A told us at the sports festival,” Terasaka says.

“Yes,” Hazama says. “That means she’ll probably want to reward him.” 

“I mean, not that  _ I  _ see it. And I know  _ you  _ don’t see it. But don’t girls… like him? He’ll probably play it like he’s cool and experienced or some shit,” Terasaka says.

She smirks, “You know what, you’ll see what I mean.” 

Bitch-sensei walks in five minutes late. She wears an outfit, as always, that her mother would deem harlot-wear. She looks fantastic though. She barks,  _ English only  _ and writes out two phrases. I'd _ like a whiskey, neat, please  _ vs  _ Gimme something hard, I wanna feel it in the morning _ .

She turns around and says brightly, “Today, you brats are going to learn about regional differences, formality differences, and what drinks say about you. Twice, I’ve been able to seduce and assassinate targets after they heard me order. One was a LA director, the other was a broker in Toronto. You’re going to tell me which one was which, how I knew what to say, and why it worked by the end of class.” 

They try repeating the phrases after her. Hazama still can’t get the l’s right. Bitch-sensei’s eyes scan over the room, she nods a little bit at Yada and Nakamura. Hazama’s only a little bit jealous. 

She can visibly see when Bitch-sensei notices the new meat, “Oh, you, come up here.”

Asano walks towards the front of the class. She sees Karma’s grin, curling and sinister, from the corner of her eye. 

“Say the phrases,” Bitch-sensei orders. Asano repeats, practically perfect pronunciation, said smoothly and confidently although he frowns a little bit before the second phrase and says it less suggestively than Bitch-sensei. “You could work on your tone a little more on the second one, but you sound like a natural,” Bitch-sensei compliments. 

“Thank you,” Asano says, smiling, looking like a rabbit unaware of the hawk overhead. 

“What’s your name,” Bitch-sensei commands, technically asking but not really. 

“Asano Gakushuu,” he says politely, “I transferred in yesterday. I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name.”

“ Irina Jelavić ,” she says, like anyone in this class calls her that.

“Pleasure to meet you,  Jelavić-sensei,” Asano says. Bitch-sensei looks almost surprised.

“I’m not shocked that the principal’s genius son speaks fluent English, but you pronounced my name correctly too.”

Asano physically doesn’t change, smile fixed, but Hazama swears she can feel a frosty aura emanating from him. “I speak English, French, Portugese, and Korean fluently,” he says, smugly, “I don’t know any of the Eastern European languages that well, but it seemed like a good idea to memorize different phonetic pronunciations for the language families. I think the Balto-Slavic languages are particularly melodic.” 

“Wow!” Bitch-sensei coos. “So clever! I think you deserve a reward.”

Asano, at this point, starts to clue in that something is off. But by the time the hawk swoops down, it’s too late for the rabbit to escape the predator’s clutches. “Oh, there’s no need…”

Bitch-sensei gets in closer, runs a hand down his hair, “Oh please, I insist.” As she puckers up, Asano turns an impossibly bright shade of red as he continues to try to extricate himself.

Terasaka starts snickering as Asano’s attempts to kiss up to the teacher conflict with his desire not to kiss his teacher. 

Hazama, on the other hand, remembers her first personal lesson with Bitch-sensei. How scared she was. Desperately torn between wanting it and being afraid that her classmates could tell she wanted it. When it happened, it was brief and quick and warm. She wasn’t outstandingly good or bad, nor did she react in a funny way, so Bitch-sensei quickly moved on. She remembers the feeling of relief and disappointment in her stomach. 

She does have to smirk at Bitch-sensei’s taunts when Asano finally escapes back to his seat, having avoided the clutches of their language teacher. His blush noticeably stays as Bitch-sensei expresses her surprise that the top student “didn’t want to rank number one in this too, guess we’ll never know if you’re better than Nagisa or Toka or Karma~”

…

The octopus comes back from Mexico, sporting a festive sombrero. He teaches history. When the lesson comes to an end, there’s an assassination attempt involving Hayami pinning him in and culminates in Chiba sniping his hat off. She golf claps her seatmate. She likes Chiba, he’s appropriately gloomy and doesn’t talk much; she has a suspicion that part of the assassination attempt was not to kill their teacher, but to get rid of the hat.

As class ends, then comes her least favored type of activity: physical activity.

Karasuma, she maintains, is a demon and not the cool kind. The kind who insists on their blood, sweat, and tears. Mostly the middle one, but the others have appeared on occasion. 

Asano, of course, takes to it easily. He’s not the fastest or the strongest, but he’s clearly in the top-tiers for both. He falters a bit at first at the parkour; he lands on a tree branch that can’t support him and breaks, but catches himself as he lands and quickly climbs back on a tree to continue.

Clearly, she thinks and she’s sure many other of peers think, he won’t be a deadweight when it comes to assassination. 

When it comes to gunwork, he’s not great, clearly unused to the recoil. But by the end of the practice/mini-lesson he’s hitting more targets than some of the people in class E who’ve been doing this for months now.

Only half of the class is allowed at the gun range at a time, and usually it’s divided by gender. Due to their similarity in shooting abilities (shut up Terasaka, just that), she’s usually next to Nakamura, who whistles and turns to her.

“He’s not great, but he’s catching on quicker than we did.”

“I mean, not us we,” she points to herself and Nakamura who’s probably the second smartest kid in class E, Kaotoka’s and Takebayashi’s grades notwithstanding and one of the best shots in the class, “but yes, he’ll probably be middle of the class in assassin skills by the end of the today, and might outpace most of us by the end of the month if he continues improving at this rate.”

“I mean, some assassin skills. Based on his performance today, I don’t think we have to worry about any honey-pot competition,” Nakamura says with a smile.

“True. And he’ll have to survive the next month,” Hazama says.

“He’s smart, he’ll be fine,” Nakamura says. “We can’t be worse than whatever it’s like having Principal Fuckface as a father.”

“I don’t think intelligence is going to help him with hand-to-hand combat with Karma.”

“I don’t think anything in the world could,” Nakamura drawls. When she smiles at her, Hazama finds herself smiling back. 

  
  


Karasuma-sensei clearly does not want to do sparring today, despite it being part of their rotation on conditioning days. They usually alternate between doing a regime of mobility/gun skills/combat skills and more elaborate warm up/scenario days. 

However, some of the boys are insistent. 

“Come on, Karasuma-sensei, don’t you want to see what the new student can do?” Sugaya asks with a grin.

“I was there for the sports festival! I know about pole-topping! You need to work as a team, not team up against a classmate. One stuck gear ruins the machine,” Karasuma-sensei sensibly says. 

“But how can we effectively utilize our newest addition without knowing his skills?” Karma asks.

“I’m sure there’s no hard feelings after the sports festival,” Isogai says. “I mean, not to rub it in or anything, but we won. We should include him in our daily routine.”

The boy in question shrugs, and Asano says that “he wouldn’t be opposed in a measuring of skills,” seeing as there’s no need for either side to hold back.

“Fine, if you all can agree to be professional about it, we can do sparring to get an idea of where Asano is at.” Karasuma-sensei says. “Asano, I am aware you’ve had martial arts training, but this will be different from what you’re used to, and there’s no shame in losing to a more experienced opponent.”

“Of course,” Asano says. 

And then he doesn’t lose because, of course. Even when demoted into loserdom, Asano’s a winner.

Karasuma sends in people based on their familiarity with combat, which proves to be a mistake. While Asano is clearly unfamiliar with knifework, he disposes with the boys who are physically less capable (sorry Muramatsu) with his martial arts skills. As Karsuma has him spar with more students, he gets more familiar with the knife.

He’s still not  _ the best _ . Maehara and Isogai get him with knives although it’s surprisingly close. She suspects that as Asano gets more familiar with knifework, he might start beating the two of them. Itona and Asano have a fairly intense battle, Itona clearly physically superhuman and Asano clearly expecting the superhuman from him and having moves Itona doesn’t expect. Itona wins, but Asano puts up a good fight against him as any of the rest of them could.

Terasaka loses. He’s going to complain about it, for sure. Terasaka’s skill is his strength, but charging at Asano  _ in a spar _ was always going to be a losing strategy.

Hazama thinks that some of the girls should spar against him. It’d be interesting to see how well Okano would do. Karasuma-sensei won’t of course out of sexism/chivalry, but he really, really should have the girls spar against the boys more. It might change the culture of what inevitably happens when you let teenage boys overdose on their own testosterone. 

The boys always make it a dick measuring contest and the sparring culminates with the biggest, most annoying dicks of them all.

Karasuma-sensei has been having them rotate partners, as to give everyone training and not to force Asano to get beat up against a bunch of fresh opponents. But everyone stops fighting to watch the last match.

Karma vs Asano. It should be interesting. Asano, at this point, is used to the knife. He’s not at the familiarity where he’s using it as an extension of his body, but with his tactics and martial arts abilities, he’s clearly not very hindered. He moves decisively and precisely, with full-force and no wasted movement.

Karma on the other hand fights like the delinquent he is. Hazama can easily imagine him mugging people, possibly while wearing a jaunty hat. But with him being all-around good at everything and his proclivities to cunning and guile, Karma’s is indisputably the best fighter among class E. 

The fight starts out explosively with Karma charging at Asano with a punch. When Asano dodges, Karma quickly reveals the feint and jabs at him with the anti-sensei knife. Asano, however, uses Karma’s own momentum against him, redirecting him away. The fight continues like this, Karma offensively blistering while Asano remains steady on the defense. 

Then, the tables turn. Clearly, Asano’s plan relied on tiring Karma out and seeing the other boy’s moves before going onto an offensive strategy. Karma, however, seems unconcerned.

“I was expecting more from you, Impeached-Student-President-kun,” Karma taunts. “Where’s the panache? The neat flips?”

“Stay still so I can punch you,” Asano says. 

“Were you just more confident with your adoring fan-club around to clap at your tricks? I’ll applaud,” Karma says before dropping down and sweeping Asano’s legs. 

Asano dodges the attack and says nothing. Waits for Karma to attack again so he can catch him off balance. 

“Or was it because you had those foreigners around, huh? Did you want to show off for the beefy American?” Karma says, also going into an offensive pose, waiting. 

“I am sorry that some fifteen year olds have musculature, Akabane,” Asano says. “I’m sure Kevin didn’t mean to make you feel insecure.”

Karma charges, clearly out of impatience rather than anger. “We just want you to feel confident. Is the totally-real exchange still going on, or did they leave after you gave whatever bribe you used to get them here?”

Asano works on getting around Karma’s onslaught, but it’s clear he’s slowing down while lacking any real finishing knife moves to end this spar. “Jealous that I have friends?”

“”Isn’t it “had” friends? Didn’t everyone leave you after realizing you’re not perfect?” Karma taunts. He says this lightly, like he says all his bullshit. Hazama doesn’t think he expected Asano’s next move.

He drops the knife and when Karma’s glances away for just a moment, punches Karma in the face. Hard. Karasuma-sensei shouts and moves to break it up, but before he has the chance, Karma takes the arm and pushes Asano off-balance. They both fall to the ground and Karma pins Asano by the wrist. 

“Sorry being a dick cost you everything you had,” Karma says. Hazama guesses he was more pissed than she realized about the Isogai stuff. “Sorry underhanded methods couldn’t protect you from losing or daddy dearest’s bullshit.”

Asano, face to the ground, inhales in. Hazama isn’t quite sure what happens next. She sees his arm twisting in a frankly unnatural way, him pushing off the ground, and kicking Karma. Whatever move he pulls, it ends with him standing up, cradling his clearly hurt arm, while Karma sits on the ground, amused.

Hazama is struck by the imagery of a cat, smug among the remnants of vases the feline pushed off the ledge. 

Karasuma comes over and yells at both of them. Karma first, for being “unprofessional and needlessly antagonistic.” Asano tries to blow him off, says it’s only a sprain, to be insulted for “completely stupid risk taken for a  _ friendly  _ spar, you knew you’d probably lose against  _ someone with more experience than you  _ and you’ve just set back your pace on catching up.”

Asano scowls, visibly, clearly unused to a teacher scolding him. He skulks off as soon as Karasuma gives them permission to leave.

Hazama is struck by the imagery of Asano on the ground, having clearly already lost, willing to injure himself if only to give his enemy a little less to gloat over. Animalistic, she thinks. Admirable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karma "will poke at something at it to explode" Akabane vs Gakushuu "Only Losers Lose At Things" Asano ft Kirara "Really? In front of my salad?" Hazama.
> 
> See you Monday!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asano Gakushuu opines.

Asano Gakushuu is not having a great time. To be fair, he hasn’t had one of those in Japan in several years. But usually, he has a reasonably good time-- he might always see the gray aura of exhaustion in the corner of his eyes, but he also usually sees the admiration of his peers and his numerous accomplishments, which mostly balances it out.

He’s slept more in the past two weeks than he has in five years and yet, he’s more tired than ever. 

It’s truly remarkable, he thinks, that the principal manages to take away so much away from him. Every time he thinks,  _ at least that’s it,  _ he finds a way to take more. He’s not shocked that his father has managed to take away his admirers. He’s more disappointed in himself for being surprised that his main minions were taken too, but whatever happened to his drive?

Asano Gakushuu would set himself on fire to shine a bit brighter, to drown out his competition. He might’ve been obsessive, ruthless, manipulative, under-handed, malicious, cruel, controlling, but he wasn’t weak. He always won. Or, at least, he used to. 

Now, having made a fool of himself to fight a spar to a draw, amongst the weakest in his school, who’ve beat him thrice now, even still he finds himself unable to light a spark.

He’d self-diagnose himself with depression, if Asano’s got mental illnesses, if there was a chance in hell he’d ever be let ten feet near a pill ever again.

“Young Asano!” Korosensei cheers, calling from inside the school. He must’ve been watching the fights.  _ How embarrassing  _ he thinks dully. “Why don’t you come inside for a chat?”

Gakushuu weighs the chances of him being let go if he replies negatively. But it’s not as if there’s any relief to be found in his home, so he might as well play nice with his target. There's part of him who hates this octopus, who came into his school, who disrupted the balance, who ruined everything.

But Asano’s not deluded enough to think the barbarians’ sacking caused the fall of Rome, that blame lay with mad Nero even before he plucked a lyre note, already in ruin before Rome burned. 

Korosensei fusses over Asano’s arm. He apparently knows first aid and fashions a rather impressive splint out handkerchiefs. Embroidered octopuses, some small yellow stitches, some giant realistic outlines, all are on the series of cloth on hand.

_ Who are you?  _ Gakushuu thinks not for the first time this year, not for the first time today.  _ What are you?  _

“I don’t want the principal to fire me for damaging his only son on the very first day,” Korosensei frets.

Gakushuu has a retort on the tip of his tongue, that very clearly the principal does not care about injuries to teenagers and is willing to dole them out himself. But, of course, he can’t say that, so instead he says, “Hardly. Me being injured will actually be a great boon to him.”

Koro-sensei’s face turns a color which he presumes represents curiosity and makes a questioning noise.

“Why do you think I was sent here? Class E has been winning too much. He needs to show that being sent down is something to dread and to be afraid of.” 

“I’m sure he cares about you very much, and doesn’t want you to be hurt,” Korosensei says. Gakushuu wonders if he believes it. People, after close to a year at  Kunugigaoka , don’t usually doubt the principal. 

“I have never seen a man care as much about his students,” Gakushuu says. The implied is left hanging, that the principal cares  _ only  _ about his students. Gakushuu has never had any illusions about his longevity after outliving his usefulness. If he can’t be a model to aspire to, then of course the principal will repurpose the tool into a stern warning. 

Koro-sensei treads carefully, “I care very much about each and every student, including you Asano-kun. I would like to get a chance to get to know you better.” 

Gakushuu says nothing. Son of Gakuhou Asano, until recently, a perennial victor, currently in class E. Quite frankly, there’s not much else to know. 

“I will say I must admit I’ve had an idea of what you were like, and you’ve already proven it wrong,” Koro-sensei says. “Proof even us teachers are still learning.”

Gakushuu says nothing although he folds his arms, still cradling his hurt wrist.

“I was surprised that you didn’t try to assassinate me today. I would’ve thought you would be confident in your skills against me.” 

“I would deeply prefer not to die by March,” Gakushuu concedes. “But I have my own thoughts about that, and killing you hardly gets me closer to my goal.”

Gakushuu wonders, if he did manage to assassinate Koro-sensei, would it all be wiped away? Would he be forgiven, allowed to reclaim his rightful spot on the throne of  Kunugigaoka ? He can imagine it so clearly, the newspaper headlines, father announcing the ruse, the return of the steady  _ pings  _ of the virtuoso group chat.

But school is only 7 hours a day, only 12 counting his extracurriculars. It wasn’t his school anyways, and he doubts that any feat of murder was going to wash the bloodstains out in  father the principal’s office, that he could still smell sometimes at night, nothing was going to change the way the principal evaluates him now, looking down more than ever.

He could murder a hundred earth-destroyers and the principal would probably continue this new routine of checking the bathroom every night. Nothing important would change if he saved the Earth. 

“Oh? What are your thoughts? I do enjoy hearing theories about me. You’ll be hard pressed to beat Fuwa-san’s though.”

“We reap what we sow, and we sow what we reap. People don’t dedicate their time and money with no plan for return on investment,” Gakushuu says. “You’re not teaching for free, either arithmatic or assassination.”

“Maybe I get bored,” Korosensei says.

“Maybe you want to be assassinated,” Gakushuu says. It was the only logical conclusion. The farmer raises the cattle to eat the meat. He has a feeling livestock practices would change if instead of butchering the calf for veal, they blew up the cow to smithereens. 

“Maybe,” Koro-sensei says, looking unexpectedly serious for an inherently ridiculous looking creature. “I just think assassins are really, really cool.”

  
...

Gakushuu has nothing else to do, so he goes home. It’s empty, of course. The principal stays late at school, later now that he has to prepare lesson plans. 

Gakushuu greets the housekeeper. She’s been fluttering around more, after the incident. Gakushuu is not quite sure if it’s out of concern or because she’s been tasked with reporting to the principal. He has not ruled out “both” as an option, either.

He goes to do that day’s homework and finishes within the hour. It’s 6:30 PM and there’s nothing for Gakushuu to really do. Has he ever had this much free time? What do other people _ do  _ with it all?

He feels very suddenly that he’s been dropped from one extreme to the other, a frozen frog dropped into a pool of boiling water. Before, he did his homework, ran student council, rotated practices with the several sports teams he served as the drop-in member, and tutoring. Besides his on-campus activities, he had regular youth leadership meetings, practicing languages, practicing instruments, practicing martial arts, studying for non-school subjects (business, debate, robotics, programming, fiber arts, tactics), and studying for national mock exams. In previous years, he had his gamut of out-of-school competitions (pitches for future leaders of America, non-school sports with programs better than  Kunugigaoka’s athletics, whatever stupid spelling bee/singing/pig-lassoing he decided to try to win in), but he scaled back on those after first term finals. 

He could probably still do most of those. But there were to be no more exchange programs or music competitions or feel-good stories about local teen knitting for the less fortunate. There was no immediate gain for him picking up the guitar and practicing, no possible scenario in his grounded state for utilization, and he felt no desire to do it for… fun or whatever other reason there were.

What did people do when there were competitions to win? Life itself was a competition, but he didn’t think there was a way he could practice for that.

That left assassination, he supposed. He did want to get better at that. He could not win against Akabane today, that was disappointing, but acceptable. According to the principal, he could even not-win for three days. But after that, he had to win. 

He runs through the basic knife forms Karasuma taught him, one handed with the splint. He runs through them again. He needs to take this as a habit, until the motions are as natural as juggling a soccer ball, summonable through unconscious reflex alone. He starts mentally preparing what he needs to practice: he needs the knife to become an extension of his body, he needs to practice maneuvering in a variety of difficult terrains, he needs to practice his shooting, although probably not in this backyard. He can shoot in the woods, presumably.

He should probably start planning out some sort of assassination attempt at the octopus, if nothing else, to prove that he could be a useful part of this class. While assassinating his homeroom teacher would do nothing for him, he has to admit the look on Akabane’s face would be hilarious if he immediately succeeded at what the End Class had been struggling to do for most of the year.

He does a kata while holding the knife as he thinks, seeing how the weapon interacts with his various styles (alas, judo seems… not particularly relevant). There’s little to no chance he could beat the teacher in strength or speed. A trap then is necessary. Poison seems the easiest way to trick him, but if the creature has any intelligence, it’s not like he’s eating random food lying around. Ink? A gas? 

He doesn’t notice the principal approaching, which is a rookie mistake he hasn’t made since he was nine. Obviously, he doesn’t need the pills. But he must admit he felt sharper on them. 

He wishes he didn’t flinch, but he can’t help it. He keeps expecting to still see Kevin’s blood on the principal’s hands. He can tell the principal, too, wishes he didn’t flinch.

“How was your first day of class, Asano-kun?” the principal asks. He supposes it’d be a normal question for a father to ask their son, if anything about their household was normal. 

“Fine,” he answers.

“I noticed the splint. Are you finding the… other elements of the curriculum a struggle while you deal with withdrawal?” 

He could say that he wasn’t ever an addict, that adderall withdrawal doesn’t last that long anyways, that  _ he  _ was clearly physically fit compared to the other members of the principal’s chosen. He doesn’t feel like saying anything at all, so he just says “No”. 

His father never talked to him without attempting to depart some sort of lesson, and it appears that this conversation would be no different as he got to his point, “Class A is thriving under my instruction. We’ve covered quite a lot of material. Now they understand that the one leading them was flawed, they’ve managed to overcome their plateau and improve quite a bit.”

“I’m glad,” he replies. Glad, at least, they’re living up to his father’s standards. He has become very aware of what happens to people who serve the principal’s system better as an outsider rather than one allowed to warm themselves by the fire.

“Your choices of fighting style with the knife are flawed. I understand you specialized in submission styles that don’t lend themselves to armed combat, but you are aware you were taught moves from a variety of specialities that specifically pair well with weapons. I made sure of it,” the principal says.

Gakushuu doesn’t say anything because he knows it’s true. He doesn’t, of course, want to use something that’s the principal’s, that the principal gave to him. But in running away, he’s allowing himself to be shaped in equal measure by the principal’s teachings. There wasn’t a clear escape.

The principal gestures for the knife. Gakushuu hands it over. He watches. The principal could be deadly with a knife.

(The principal could be deadly with just his hands, they fell hard, they could’ve had concussions, Kevin had a concussion, those are permanent, they cause permanent damage, chronic traumatic encephalopathy is endemic among football players---) 

Gakushuu had seen these moves before. Occasionally, when the principal wants to make a point, they’ve sparred. The principal wants his students to be excellent at all fields. The principal wants to make sure Gakushuu knows how far he has to go.

The principal is not violent with him, not really, not ever. Gakushuu knows he thinks violence is crude cudgel, the educational equivalent of performing surgery with a butcher’s knife. 

Gakushuu used to wish that his father would just hit him. It’d be easier to explain to the therapist in ten years.  _ This is what my father has done to me _ , he would say.  _ This is the mark that he left _ . 

Gakushuu has heard of fathers who hit their sons. Who feel so strongly of something they lash out physically.

Gakushuu isn’t sure they’ve touched more than incidental contact since he was eight. He’s including what happened at the office-- the swift jab to the head, perfectly calculated to knock out an attacking 14 year old-- that was incidental. When the principal hands back the knife, their fingers do not touch.


	5. Chapter 5

The days pass. Each day is different and brings about unique challenges, but in that sense, they're all the same, Hazama thinks. 

She wakes up. She scuttles out of the house. She reads. She goes to class. The teacher imparts some sort of life-lesson cleverly disguised in a composition or history lesson, a technique to solve a math problem or in a scientific explanation. There’s an assassination attempt. She finishes class. She loiters with the gang. She reads. She does homework. She falls asleep. Repeat.

She would’ve thought Asano would make more of a difference in the day to day. He seemed to make a rather oversized impact in his little cult on the main campus. But for most of the week, he’s a rather unobtrusive presence. He raises his hand once for every teacher, always goes for the hardest question asked. He hardens himself to Karma’s bait. He excels in the combat, quickly establishes himself in the top five for every skill that Karasuma-sensei teaches in a couple of days

He and Karma are currently 5-6, Karma’s favor in terms of sparring. How boring.

There’s what seems like to her a half-hearted assassination attempt from the president-in-exile. Sure, it involved complicated physics, multiple failsafes, and clearly was the product of hours and hours of work, but Asano seems detached as the trap is launched. There’s no change in expression when Korosensei tentacle is damaged, no smirk of success, but also no change in his composure when the octopus, is otherwise unscathed. 

They’ve been assigned partners for a short group project, and Asano seems confused.. 

“I thought your name was read like Justice, Kimura-san,” Asano asks. “Koro-sensei read it differently.” 

“Yeah,” Kimura says awkwardly. “I asked him to call me that. My parents are police officers, they got a bit enthusiastic. I hate when they read it out for public ceremonies. My parents didn’t really bother to think about how much their kid would be picked on at school.” 

Hazama, at that, chimes in, “That’s how parents are. They call me Kirara, even with this face, Kirara. Do I look like a Kirara?” 

“N-no,” Kimura says.

“Even though my mother’s head is full of fairy tales… if she doesn’t like something she immediately gets hysterical and has screaming fits. Growing up in a stressful house like that… there’s no way I would grow up to be cute like my name.” Hazama shares. Terasaka shoots her a look. She doesn’t care. This is not embarrassing to her. 

“That must be rough guys,” Karma says, mock sympathetically. “Having such weird names.” Kimura sputters at _him_ of all people saying it. “Ah me? I actually like my name. Sometime’s a parents weird sense gets passed down to their kid, right. Although, I think _some_ people take their names too seriously, like when they’re unfun.”

Asano rolls his eyes, “I do wish my first name was something, ah, a bit less pretentious.”

Karma hums, mock-surprised, “wouldn’t have thought you knew the word.”

“Well, I was never consulted on my name,” Gakushuu says. “I’m named after the principal’s two favorite things: academic competition and himself.” 

Even Terasaka grins at that dig.

Then of course, Korosensei turns the entire thing into an assassination themed lesson on self-esteem, or whatever. She can feel him look at her, when giving his grand speech at the conclusion.

“Honestly, there isn’t much meaning to the splendid names given to you by your parents,” barf, “what does have meaning is what the person behind that name does during their actual lifetime. The name doesn’t make the person, the name simply remains gently within the footprint left on the path a person walks.” 

She hopes she’s not showing an emotion or anything on her face. Stupid octopus. 

…

It’s like early evening, but Muramatsu’s restaurant is closed for painting reasons, and Terasaka tries to limit their access to his house so he’s not ganged up by five of his friends and his two sisters. Weak.

Yoshida and Terasaka get into a dick waving contest about trickshots, so they decide to solve two problems with one stone and go somewhere they can goof off and not be bothered. Hazama remembers how much she hated the hill in the beginning, how she’d never ever voluntarily agree to climb it. Now they chat as they walk up, 

“Pseudo-Takaoka! I’m nothing like the fucking creep,” Terasaka bitches.

“Well,” Muramatsu says evenly. “You do kinda look like him. At least yours made sense. Why was I loofa?”

“I fought Takaoka! With a fever! For you ungrateful fuckers.” Terasaka says. “You’re loofa because no one could think of a defining trait for you.” 

“Yes, because you’ve never bullied children,” Hazama drawls. “I think we can all agree, I had the best nickname.”

“It was fitting, The Darkness of Class E,” Yoshida admits, “I assumed loofa had something to do with Yada, Muramatsu. Childhood friends and all.”

“No, no stories involving loofahs,” Muramatsu admits. “Man, what dude came up with her nickname? Men shouldn’t comment on lesbian’s boobs.”

“Maybe a lesbian wrote her nickname,” Yoshida says. “Lesbians like boobs too.”

“I regret every conversation we’ve had up to this point, Loofah, Homebase,” Hazama comments.

“I wrote those two,” Itona says. “I just wrote the words that came to my mind, I still don’t really know who you are,” Hazama can tell he’s fucking with them. Yoshida probably suspects. Muramatsu cannot and sputters indignantly. 

They continued chatting as they reached the top of the mountain, alone atop the summit of their domain. 

Except. There’s someone at the shooting range.

Terasaka, as soon as he sees their peer, gestures that they should fall into a stealth formation. Itona raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. Terasaka just gestures a “follow me” gesture harder. Reluctantly, they fall along.

Asano literally jumps when Terasaka taps him on the back.

“Why would you sneak up on someone shooting a gun?” Asano demands.

“Dude, it’s a bb gun.” Terasaka says. “What are you doing here?”

“Practicing, clearly,” Asano says. “What are _you all_ doing here?”

“Fucking around, mostly,” Yoshida admits. 

Asano says nothing and goes back to shooting.

“Do you think you’re better than us?” Terasaka demands bluntly. Hazama wishes the boy would learn to stop asking questions he doesn't want to hear the answers to. Or, in general, Hazama wishes the boy would learn. 

“No.” Asano says, after a moment of hesitation. 

“Liar,” Itona says. 

“...I don’t rank you lower than class A?” Asano offers.

“Well, that’s something?” Muramatsu weakly argues.

“Is it?” Yoshida wonders. “Is it really.”

“I mean Karma thinks he’s better than you, Terasaka--” Hazama says. 

“--he is,” Itona interjects.

“As does Itona, for that matter--”

“--I am,” Itona confirms.

“And you hang out with those two, and even let the former undress and stroke you.” Hazama finishes.

“What?” Asano asks.

“Do you have to undermine my authority, really, you guys?” Terasaka asks plaintively, still not learning.

“Absolutely,” Yoshida says. “Or else, you’d be real-Takaoka.” 

“I hear cow-face mutter that name in his sleep, before today I assumed he was a lover or a particularly hard type of grass to eat,” Itona asks, “Who is Takaoka? ”

“Oh, shit, you weren’t there for that,” Yoshida says.

“Basically, a crazy army PE teacher who got very personally fired by the principal because they hit students and went insane after Nagisa utterly humiliated Takaoka in a fight,” says Muramatsu helpfully.

“...huh,” Asano says. 

“Aw, do you have nightmares, Terasaka?” Hazama teases, going back to Itona’s statement. “Still? I could give you _different_ nightmares if you’d like.”

“Wow, Hazama,” Terasaka drawls, sarcastically, “Yeah, sorry I’m a little fucked up about the time I thought you were all going to die a painful death.”

“You would’ve died too,” Yoshida points out. 

“Yeah,” Muramatsu says, apparently the only who remembers that they have new company, “then Takaoka went nuts, poisoned us on the trip that we won, blew up the cure, and got wreckt by Naigasa a second time.”

“Wait, this all happened on the trip after finals?”Asano asks.

“Yep! Really, he got together the stuff to kill us pretty quickly for what an elaborate plot it was,” Muramatsu says.

“He might’ve had everything ready and was just waiting for the opportunity,” Hazama says.

“Was this before or after Terasaka betrayed you all?” Itona asks.

“Bitch, I was working _with you_ ,” Terasaka says. “ _You_ were the one who knew the risk-teen-lives part of the plans.”

“How many times have you almost died at school functions?” Asano asks, concerned. 

“Too many,” Yoshida grumbles.

“Although hopefully less now?” Muramatsu asks hopefully. 

Wordlessly, Asano shakes his head and goes back to shooting.

…

They shoot their trickshots a few lanes down. They get into a ridiculous contest of naming their shots ridiculous names before trying to hit bullseye. Hazama’s only a little miffed that they don’t appreciate the brilliance of the name “Your Heart Will Be Cooked By Your Own Stomach Acid”, but pearls before swine.

Meanwhile, Asano stands and shoots. He stops to reload. He occasionally pauses, thinks, if reassessing his progress. He rotates styles of shooting, sitting, standing, moving. He stands shoulders back, feet wide, hands steady for what must be an hour. There’s no expression on his face, but mindless determination. It’s 2030, Asano has been clearly at this for a while, judging by the casings on the floor, and he shows no sign of stopping despite showing no sign of having a tangible goal.

Hazama would be impressed if she wasn’t busy being disgusted. Haunted dolls, possesed with ghosts and other things, are infinitely more interesting than hollow ones. 

Terasaka, who has never seen a confrontation he hasn’t poked at, turns to ask the crew what Asano’s nickname was.

“Daddy Issues,” Yoshida replies.

“Y’know,” Muramatsu says. “I still might’ve preferred that to loofah.” 

“I’m sorry,” Itona says, mock seriously, “I just didn’t know who you were. I’m new, forgive me.”

“Asano knows who I am, probably,” Muramatsu says. “He hasn’t even talked to me before.”

“Oi, Daddy Issues, is that true?” Terasaka calls.

Asano continues shooting, unflinchingly, as he replies, “Muramatsu Takuya, poor in math, excellent in home ec.” 

“Damn,” Yoshida says. “Can you do everyone in school?”

“Not everyone,” Asano says, reloading, “but everyone who was in danger of dropping into Class E last year, yes. I didn’t know Kayano-san, for example.”

“She transferred, I think,” Hazama says. 

“Thanks, Daddy issues,” Terasaka says. 

“You know, it’s really remarkable that Class E found a name that I would I dislike more,” Asano says.

“You really hate matching with your dad that much?” Terasaka asks.

“Yes,” Asano says. 

““You know, It’s funny, you hate your name and yet you try _so hard_ to be exactly what your father wants,” Hazama says.

“Funny,” Asano says fake-nice, “trying so hard to be the opposite of what my parent wants seems to me just giving them more power over my identity.” 

“I really, really don’t need to try,” Hazama says, “but good to know you still have claws, it’s much more entertaining than your fake prince act.”

“There’s nothing wrong with manners,” Asano says icily.

“You know,” Terasaka muses, “it’s kind of funny you haven’t made more of an attempt to join the class. I woulda pegged you to have tried really hard to get all the goody-goodies to like you.”

“After… recent events, there’s no possibility I would’ve been considered a leader in Class E,” Asano says.

“You could be a sub-leader,” Hazama says. He could be. She follows Terasaka who follows Karma who follows Isogai, sometimes. 

“What’s the point in anything less than total control?” Asano says.

“You should probably stop saying stuff like that,” Muramatsu advises. “If you want to be a sub-leader.” 

“You’re surprisingly forthcoming,” Itona notes.

‘I lost quite a while ago,” Asano says. “What’s the point of pride in the post-game?”

“I don’t get why you’re here,” Itona asks plainly. It’s clear he doesn’t mean at the shooting field.

“This school works only because of a very strict hierarchy. Otherwise, the talented students would be like Nakamura or Akabane and wouldn’t feel the need to try. Class A needs to be on the top, Class E needs to be at the bottom.”

“But that hasn’t been happening this year,” Terasaka says.

“No,” Asano admits. “It hasn’t. The baseball exposition, the bet at first term finals, Takebayashi-san’s speech in front of the whole school, pole-toppling… all absolute, visible defeats for the main school.”

“And you played, or at least were supposed to play, a role in three of those,” Hazama notes. “Was this your punishment for stupid bets and not being a welcoming _enough_ classmate to Takebayashi?”

Asano inclines his head, “Something like that. If things stayed the same, the main school might reflect that their sense of superiority isn’t on firm foundations, or that the ideology espoused at the top might be… misleading. Why hasn’t Class A been winning if they’re the chosen ones, who’ve been trying as hard as usual? There has to be something wrong, if we’ve been losing, despite overwhelming advantages.”

“Overwhelming my ass,” Terasaka says. 

“My… the principal is willing to do anything for his ideology. And if he can say, the leader you were following was flawed, he was the problem, it’ll be different now, he buys himself time to crush Class E in the rest of the events for the school year, proving his methods are still meritorious.” 

“So he’s sacrificed you,” Hazama says, “like a pawn. He could have just said the truth, which is that I’ve placed a horrible curse on the main campus.” 

“I’d like to think of myself as at least a knight,” Asano says, valiantly ignoring that last part. “But he’s the queen and Kunugigaoka is the king.” 

“Basically, he’s set you up to the fall guy, so he doesn’t have to deal with people realizing what’s really fucked up about the school,” Terasaka summarizes. “I still think people are going to assume he’s just a megadickwad punishing you for not being perfect. I mean, no one’s going to think you did drugs.”

Asano says nothing.

“Holy shit,” Yoshida says. “You totally _did_ do drugs.”

“I didn’t do anything illegal,” Asano says. “Ever. In my life.”

“You’ve never jaywalked?” Muramatsu asks.

“Why would I do that when I can use the perfectly good crosswalk?” Asano wonders.

“No, we’re going back to the drug thing.” Terasaka commands. “Asano, what the fuck. What did you even do?”

“They weren’t not illegal.” Asano says. “They haven’t been fully approved _here_ , but it’s a matter of time, and you get them over the counter in India without issue.”

“Holy shit,” Muramatsu says. “Holy shit? I feel like I’m learning the forbidden knowledge.” 

“This… ranks up there,” Hazama admits, local expert on forbidden knowledge. “Why? You’ve been number one by a wide margin since elementary school. They had newspaper articles about you when we were 8.” 

“To be a total victor, to crush the others under your feet in one or two things is easy,” Asano says, “unfortunately, I am bound by the restraints of my body, and occasionally it was useful for me to work at 100% capacity despite my body's protests. I interpreted the Asano crest of "do what it takes to win" perhaps a bit farther than my father would've liked.” 

“You couldn’t be perfect in everything and get six hours of sleep,” Terasaka summarizes. 

“No,” Asano says. “I couldn’t.” 

“Man, your dad fucking sucks,” Terasaka says, “I gotta say, you suck slightly less.” When he turns to leave, the rest of them follow. 

“...thanks?” Asano says.

Hazama stays behind a bit, and turns to Asano. “He’s decided you’re not actually satan trying to undermine us from within,” she says. “By the way, when you aim small, you miss small. Try adjusting the scope so your shots land somewhere other than at the intersection of the crosshairs,”

“Thanks.” Asano says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously based on the nickname chapter that happened earlier in the manga. Gakushuu can be very literally translated (according to, you know, google) as "excel" and "learning" while also being obviously similar to Gakuhou. A lot of the dialogue was lifted from the manga, because I'll take Hazama backstory where I can find it. 
> 
> Toka being gay is implied in the suplimentary materials too. The more you know.


	6. Chapter 6

Terasaka isn’t warmer or anything to Asano, but he has started bitching noticeably less in class, which Hazama will take as a win. Class continues its steady tread of wacky adventures and heartfelt love lessons, plus Asano who mostly seems disgruntled. 

He’s asked for harder work, apparently the main school has upped their game. New rigorous curriculum for the whole school. Apparently, after the sports festival, the principal entrenched himself as class A’s teacher. Asano perks up at this conversation, and asks how it's going. Sugino, the relayer of information now that he has 1 (one) main school contact, shrugs. Shindou, after a quick text, says that it’s apparently difficult, but nothing like the overwhelming pressure of being coached 

“Don’t worry,” Karma coos, “I still got third in midterms after all that, plus no class in the two weeks before the test. If I haven’t fallen behind, surely you won't, deposed-dictator-kun.”

Asano seems… pleased? Relieved? But also disturbed, proven by the fact she sees him ask Korosensei for more difficult work. Hazama cannot fathom ruining a good deal like easy work, but whatever makes him happy. 

She can see their teacher says no by the scowl on Asano’s face. She asks about it as they wait for Bitch-sensei to show up.

“He said that he’d give me harder homework, but that I will continue to do the same work during class, for unity” Asano says. Hazama’s impressed by the amount of disgust he manages to drip on that last word.

“Bastard,” she agrees non-committedly. She’s coming to a realization, one she didn’t quite expect.

Asano… is bored. She wasn’t aware that was an option that you could have in class E with the amount of ridiculous shenanigans that happened on any given day. But Asano didn’t shout at Korosensei’s ridiculous lies and his reaction towards Karasuma’s amazing feats indicated that he expected the superhuman. He seemed tired and restless and no amount of BB gun shooting, knife wielding, or alien teaching, made him content.

“How much have you read of Akutagawa?” she asks.

“All of it,” he says, “I stay current with the major Japanese releases, and of course, I’m familiar with the classics.” 

“How about English lit?” Hazama prefers Japanese fiction, because she hates working for things, but Korosensei has been encouraging her to expand her literary horizons and she does enjoy the gothic. 

He hesitates. “Shakespeare, obviously, and some of the more modern stories.”

“Have you read Frankenstein?” she asks.

“Of course,” Asano says.

“Jekyll and Hyde?”

“In English and Japanese,”

“Wuthering Heights,”

“No,” Asano says.

“Great. You’ll hate it.” she says. “You can read it and come in and we’ll complain about how stupid straight people are.” 

…

The next day, during PE, they’re practicing long-range assassination in trios. Asano is with her and Fuwa-- the two of them being on the upper end in the class for long range assassination. Usually, Karasuma prefers to balance the class so that people weaker in one area can learn from the stronger students-- except when he’s trying to foster teamwork for specialized future missions.

Long range seems like a waste for someone like Asano-- a difference maker skilled in the moment, someone confident giving orders in the field rather than someone like her and Fuwa-- good at specifically gathering information and staying out of the action. Hazama knows she has good points for information gathering, stealth, and shooting, but is also aware of her... less than stellar teamwork and physical abilities. 

Hm.

They're done with the excercise, having already set and launched their ambush, to no avail. Now all they can do is wait for the rest of the class to take their turns. 

“I finished Wuthering Heights,” Asano says to her.

“And?”

“Truly illogical,” he concludes.

“Do you usually read books for their logic?” she asks, genuinely curious. 

“It was distracting how stupid the choices the characters made were,” he says.

“You don’t find the choices our peers make, particularly around the opposite sex, illogical?” She asks.

“Generally speaking, there’s less murder involved,” he deadpans, “although perhaps that’ll change now.”

“Sadly, no,” she informs him,“though it’d be less tedious if there were more ghosts.”

“Or revenge,” he adds helpfully.

“Or revenge.” 

“I just want to clarify a comment you made yesterday: I am not homosexual.” He says. Technically, he doesn’t say it awkwardly, he says it confidently and smoothly. She bets he practiced this in front of a mirror, the fuck kid.

Fuwa, in the background, spittakes. Hazama isn’t even sure if the girl was drinking water.

“I never said you were,” she says.

His eyebrows furrow, “Ah. Well, you implied I was,”

“No, I did not. I implied you weren’t _straight_. That doesn’t mean you’re gay.” 

“I am in fact straight,” Asano declares.

“That’s not what your vibes say,” she says.

“My… vibrations?”

“You give off a not-straight aura,” she tells him helpfully.

“That doesn’t seem scientific.”

“Nonetheless,” she sighs.

“Nonetheless, I am heterosexual,” he says. If Hazama was a good member of the community blah blah, she’d leave it there blah blah people come to their own realizations with time. But. She’s not. So, rude pressure it was.

“Tell me,” she says, “Mr. Hetero, who do you think is the most attractive girl in our class.”

He pauses a second before saying “Kanzaki-san.” 

Fucking bullshit. “What do you like about Kanzaki, Asano?”

Another pause. “She has symmetrical facial features,” as if realizing how satisfying that sounded, he tacks on “and shiny hair. And adequate skills in certain subjects.” 

“Are you sure you didn’t just choose a girl you’ve overheard other guys say was attractive?” she asks. She’s heard the story behind the bet.

Asano doesn’t reply to that, but does say, “I’m a straight man--

“--boy,” she interrupts, seriously, she’s not taking _that_ part of this seriously.

“--and I cannot imagine what “vibe” made you think otherwise.”

“You sort of clearly see everyone as paper dolls,” Hazama says. “Except for Karma. You actually see him as a person albeit a deeply annoying one.”

“Maybe because that is, as he insists, the so-called rivalry?” Asano suggests.

“Nakamura is prettier, bitchier, and actually defeated you in a subject.” Hazama informs him

“You have just seen me interact more with Akabane because we sit next to each other,” he says. “Besides, I generally don’t think rivalry is the basis of attraction. Rather the opposite. Rivals are definitionally not romantic partners.”

“Rivals,” Hazama says, “can be gay.”

“I would argue rivals are _especially_ gay,” Fuwa agrees. She’s clearly been holding back on this conversation, but wants to contribute now that they’ve gotten to her expertise.

“It’s about the eroticism of maybe wanting to commit violence,” Hazama says.

“Or Naruto!” Fuwa chirpingly agrees. 

“I am not gay for anyone, especially a rival, which I don’t have,” Asano argues. “Also, I’m not quite certain what Naruto’s about, but I feel confident it’s not gay.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Fuwa says. “Also, did you have no childhood. Don’t answer that.” 

“I was practical,” Asano informs them, “I read practical things as a child.”

“Manga can be practical,” Fuwa says. “Naruto would’ve been practical.”

“Isn’t it about ninjas?” Asano asks incredulously.

“Asano,” Hazama starts, “we’re assassins.”

“And what did ninjas do?” Fuwa asks rhetorically, “assassinate people.” 

“This is not a manga,” he informs them.

“Wow, really?” Hazama drawls, while Fuwa strokes her chin.

“I don’t know about that! This could be a manga,” she starts. “We just don’t realize it because we’re side characters.”

“Who’s the main character?” Hazama asks.

“Probably some sort of generic everyman,” Fuwa says.

“So, Muramatsu, Yoshida, Sugino, Kimura, Mimura or Sugaya?” Hazama says.

“Hm… probably Sugino!” Fuwa says. “Although I guess we’re being sexist, it could be a girl.”

“Kayano has protagonist-strange hair, was almost kidnapped by Takaoka, and only has the defining character trait of liking pudding,” Hazama says.

“...pudding?” Asano asks.

“Yeah, you missed the pudding based assassination!” Fuwa says.

Asano stares out into the horizon, unblinking. 

…

“Why,” Terasaka asks.

“What do you mean, _why_. You know why.” Yoshida says.

“I mean it’s clearly based on strength in Japanese,” she says, “why do you think you keep working with Karma and Kanzaki?”

“I don’t know, the alphabet?” Terasaka says. They all shake their heads and mouth “the alphabet” at each other.

“Look on the brightside, you’ll have Hazama there.” Yoshida says. “Wait, _why_ are you there?”

“Octopus trying to socially integrate Asano, knows about our little book club, odd number in class, mediating between two stubborn rocks.” she explains

“I still don’t like that little book club,” Terasaka informs her. 

“You don’t like to read,” Hazama says. “Asano and I do.” 

“Nakamura likes to read,” Terasaka says.

“I will curse you,” Hazama threatens. There was a time earlier in the year when he’d have blown off that warning. That’s not a mistake he made a second time.

“I don’t know why you’re complaining,” Muramatsu says, “Asano’s nice when he’s not competing with you. He’ll be nicer than Karma.”

“But not as nice as Kanzaki…” Yoshida sighs, looking over at the beauty working with Sugino.

“Hazama,” Terasaka says seriously, “if it comes down to it, you’re on my team.”

“I don’t know what possessed you to think I wouldn’t make fun of either of you at any given opportunity,” she says. “Now move over, I want to make Asano come to us.”

...

The three of them work on the assigned task in relative harmony-- occasionally Asano would correct Terasaka’s mistakes, occasionally Hazama would substitute word choice, occasionally Terasaka would scowl and ask her for help. Generally speaking, it went better than Terasaka’s usual assignments which left someone near tears (Kanzaki when it was Terasaka and her working together, Terasaka when it was Karma and him working together, the octopus near tears for both combos). 

Hazama’s not necessarily surprised that Asano makes a good tutor, but she is surprised how quickly he adjusts for Terasaka’s learning style. Unfortunately, he can’t do anything to adjust Terasaka’s speed. And, Korosensei will be checking every one’s work to make sure all parties write an equal portion of the work. Which means, they need to finish it outside of class.

“We should,” she says, a diabolic idea coming to mind, “finish this at Asano’s house.”

“What?” Terasaka asks.

“What.” Asano says.

“We need to finish this somewhere and we can’t practically use the school library,” she points out. “Terasaka, you promised to take your sisters to karate, so unless you want to walk down the mountain and back up again,”

“I can parkour,” Terasaka says. “That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” 

“If we need a house, we could use yours, Hazama-san,” Asano says politely. “I think my house might be best… avoided.”

“No, we can’t do my house, my mother would like you too much and it’d make her too happy,” Hazama says.

“That doesn’t seem to be a problem,” Asano replies.

“I don’t think your father would be too happy if you hung around delinquents,” she says, “no one is happy to see Terasaka in their house.” 

Terasaka finally cottons on, “if he’s going to send you to E class, he has to expect you’d start hanging around some E-class people. Turn the punishment around on him.”

“Unless there’d be consequences,” Hazama tacks on, “beyond him being pissy at dinner.”

“Fine,” Asano acqueises, “but please be careful.”

“Oh no, what’s he going to do, send us to F class?” Terasaka says sarcastically.

“If he challenges you to any kind of physical competition, say no and back down,” Asano says., “or mental competition. Just… don’t do anything that’ll give him an excuse to beat you.”

“You mean, like beat in a competition, right?” Terasaka asks. 

“Of course,” Asano says. 

Terasaka’s eye twitches. Hazama wonders if Asano’ll read that as Terasaka being annoyed about the implied put down of his competitive abilities. 

Only she knows that’s one man’s inner struggle between adoption and grudge-holding. 

…

They’re supposed to meet in an hour and a half, meet for less than two hours, then go their separate ways. It goes… almost perfectly actually.

Asano doesn’t live too far from her, although deeper into the nice part of town. Asano’s housekeeper seems excited to see them, although she looks confused as she eyes Terasaka. Nonetheless, she lays out snacks.

“What the fuck is this gerbil shit?” Terasaka asks.

“Please, watch your language,” Asano asks, “or at least, save it until the principal can overhear you. We don’t keep junk food in the house.”

“No dessert? No chips?" Hazama asks. 

“Why would I want to consume something nutritionally worthless?” Asano says.

“Because they’re tasty?” Terasaka says.

“How tasty are your cavities?” Asano retorts.

“Bold of you to assume that Teraska goes to the dentist,” Hazama juts in. 

“Let’s just finish the project,” Asano sighs. He seems to be doing that a lot since he joined 3E. 

He leads them into his room, which is certainly… something. Hazama, of course, isn’t allowed to decorate her room fully to her liking-- thus the heart shaped vanity, frilly pink curtains, and lace all on all the surfaces. So, she painted the walls black one night, the only deviation from white in her whole house. Sure, her mother yelled at her for it, but it couldn’t be covered up-- proof that she existed there, then, in that space. 

Asano’s room shows no signs of life. The walls are beige, his bedding is white. The only books out are textbooks and reference books. It’s military neat, although there are some boxes, which upon further inspection, contain various awards. 

“Why are they in boxes?” Hazama asks.

“I don’t want to throw them away in case I need them for proof,” Asano says.

“You could, I don’t know, hang them? Have something in your room?” Terasaka says.

“Why would I need to hang them? I remember winning them regardless of physical token,” Asano says.

“Because your room looks like you’re a future serial killer,” Terasaka informs him, “legit creepier than Goth Girl over here, and her mom collects dolls.” 

“People don’t come over very often,” Asano says. “Can we please finish up the project? In a perfect world, you’ll be gone before the principal comes home.”

“I thought you were on-board with pissing the principal off with your new low-life contacts,” Hazama says.

“The housekeeper will report it, there’s no need for direct confrontation,” he says dismissively, “we’ve got 50 lines to go.”

They work for a little over an hour. But there’s a reason why this only goes _almost_ perfectly. 

Asano stiffens at a noise. She pauses for a second before she can hear it too, a car locking and footsteps towards the house.

In anticipation, they tense, keep working quietly. Only a few more lines to go. This… might not have been their best idea.

“Oh Asano,” the dread lich appears, “I wasn’t aware you were having guests. Or that you were allowed guests.”

“You never said anything about that,” their Asano says. “We’re just finishing up a school assignment.” 

“You usually don’t have people over,” the principal muses, “I think that Sakakibara-kun was over, once maybe. I’m glad you’re making friends you’re comfortable around, spending time with people… more your speed.” 

“Thank you,” Asano says. “For some reason, most people my age don’t want to come into your domicile… or into your office, for that matter.”

They’re smiling at each other. Unpleasant. Hazama finishes up the last line and Terasaka hoists her up.

“Thank you for having us, Asano,” she says. “Unfortunately, I can tell your house is on a dark ley line, and you might need an exorcist. I’ll have somethings at home that might help, I’ll give them to you in class on Monday.” 

“We’re going to… go… commit petty crimes,” Terasaka says. “Bye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hazama is like, six months older than Asano. She's like, 15. Truly a venerable queer sage.


	7. Chapter 7

“Interesting choice of allies,”  ~~ his father ~~ the principal says, “I would’ve thought you would’ve learned from your failures and chosen  _ more  _ competent people, but I suppose the pool is shallower. A pity. I thought you would’ve used this as an opportunity to improve, not fall in with other delinquents.” 

“Didn’t you say that you lost once and then spent three days learning, and you would’ve gone mad if you lost again?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe I’ve just gone mad,” he says, “although, you did say that quote after violently brutalizing four teenagers because they critiqued your parenting style, so maybe I should take your advice with a grain of salt.” 

“They agreed to the spar. You’re the one who acted violently and rashly,” the principal says. “If those exchange students couldn’t handle a four-on-one spar that they consented to, then perhaps you shouldn’t have let them into this sort of situation in the first place.”

Gakushuu  wants to say a lot-- when Kevin wouldn’t say that he was sorry because he couldn’t, because of the concussion the principal gave him, that he thought the principal was going to strike again, that he was scared and wanted… wanted the principal to stop, that he remembers when he was ten, and the principal showed him the awful thing with the homeless men, that  Gakushuu  begged him to stop, that his father didn’t, that his father laughed, that father said that if he couldn’t stop his father from this, he should remember that he couldn’t stop anyone from doing it to him, only if he was strong, only if he could make people stop---but he can’t say that. It’d come off whiney. It’d come off weak.

Ultimately, the principal is right. None of it would’ve happened if  Gakushuu stopped Kevin, if he took more responsibility in the office, if he warned the exchange students in advance,  _ if he hadn’t lost _ . What the principal did was unfair, but life was unfair.

Unless you were strong enough to stop it. 

“Hazama-san was demoted for anti-social behavior rather than academic issues,” the principal muses, “but wasn’t the other boy demoted for both? I believe he has the worst grades in the school.”

“Terasaka got a 100 in home ec,” he offers dully.

“Haven’t I heard you mention that Terasaka boy before? Perhaps a year ago, when you were choosing what minions to elevate,” the principal muses. “Isn’t he connected to Koyama-kun?”

Gakushuu  stares at him. He’s right, of course. Gakushuu chose Koyama in part of his near eidetic memory, but part because he thought that his hatred and contempt of the rude, dumb Terasaka and other E class kids like him meant that he’d always be loyal to the polite, genius Gakushuu. 

“You monologue, sometimes,” the principal elucidates, “I catch myself doing the same. It’s good you inherited some part of me, Asano-kun.” He pauses as he waits at the doorway, “Koyama’s doing very well in my class. Although, he seems tired these days. Pity you can’t support them more.”

_What_ _a dramatic, despicable man_ , Gakushuu thinks. Unfortunately, they share 50% of the same DNA. Maybe he should dye his hair. If he’s really going to embrace this whole delinquent thing. 

…

Gakushuu has been doing a valiant job. In general, but specifically about not checking social media. Almost certainly the principal has frothed up a fervor against him in the main school. Probably not directly, but he may have included little PSAs about study drugs and not relying on shortcuts and how weakness is contagious. Then, would've he brought the ~~five~~ four virtuosos into the fold to spread rumors and drag the rest of the school away from him.

Which means, logically, there’s a lot of negative press about him on social media. He’s never had the time or the want for an online presence, but Gakushuu knows from the memes in the group chat that there’s some sort of hub which features rather malicious images and jokes about class E.

Asano Gakushuu-- fallen idol, broken pedestal, object of admiration/jealousy/camaraderie-- probably inspired feelings of betrayal to those who had faith in him. Which was… everyone. 

Maybe he should’ve toned it down on some of the rhetoric. In his defense, there’s very few guides on how to manipulate people not written by cult leaders. The books that teach you how to manipulate people that aren't _by_ cult leaders were usually _about_ cult leaders and Gakushuu then adapted the material. 

The point being, he’s been smart enough to resist the urge to see what the main campus was saying. He checked the alert that popped up when he was removed from the virtuoso chat, but that’s it. 

However, he wasn’t thinking when he saw a notification pop up for an app he didn’t recognize. Months ago, he downloaded what was essentially a reskinned forum reader app on the advice of his vice-president, Suzuki Hina. Apparently, it was the student communication app. Mostly, he got her or Araki to post the info on there. He didn’t really ever use it.

So he wasn’t aware you got a notification when someone @’d you. 

It was not a very nice sentiment. He scrolled up. There were a lot of not very nice sentiments. 

There was a picture of the “much better Asano replacements”. Seo apparently didn’t survive the power vacuum and was thus sitting in the background, replaced by Suzuki. Gakushuu liked Seo, but he understood that they probably needed symbolic purges of weakness besides his absence. Ren seemed to be the central focus of the picture. Unsurprising. He would make a good leader. Handsome, charismatic, comparatively less… straight-edged and tightly wound than he had. Those had their advantages. 

Ren’s hair looked uneven. Ren  _ always _ made time for his hair. Araki looked tired. Suzuki was not smiling and her clothes were wrinkled. Koyama looked… bad. Koyama was never the best at critical thinking or application or any other time saving measures. Best memory Gakushuu knew of, but you had to cover the material to memorize it; he knows that on breaks and on weekends, Koyama studied far in advance in order to make time to read  _ everything _ . 

Undoubtedly, the principal was speeding up the curriculum. Undoubtedly, Koyama would put studying over his own health, hygiene, and anything else.

He scrolled up. One of the comments was from Koyama. It was not very charitable to Gakushuu.

He turned off his phone. 

…

Korosensei won’t let him deviate from his peers during class, which is ridiculous. It’s not arrogant to say that he and Terasaka have different capabilities regarding work. His peers aren’t E class -- not really. 

(Well, in the privacy of his own head, he can admit that certain students have similar capabilities in certain subjects, however, group theory applies: they too can only go as fast as their slowest member.)

The material prepared for home study, meant to keep him at pace with 3A is almost repulsively perfect. It relates to the topics covered in the week, it provides a light refresher for the topics about to be covered, the questions are a mix of confidence boosters meant to showcase creative applications of the new knowledge, deeper questions meant to be challenging, and difficult, esoteric questions that require contemplative thought.

And, based on the questions the principal asks him over dinner, related to the main school curriculum. His father hasn’t even assigned him extra work to point out his inadequacies in a topic, which the principal occasionally still had to do even back when he was in class A. Meaning he had to be learning college (or higher?) level material just from these course packets Korosensei assembled. 

They’re perfect enough that Gakushuu can’t even complain about it, which is his only real hobby these days. It’s also baffling to him: if Gakushuu did well, all the credit would go to the principal for his genetic contribution and no-nonsense way of handling his son. And it’s not like without these course packets, he would slip so far that Korosensei would have to take ownership over his failure. It must be a good deal of extra work for the teacher, when he’d only been in his class for two weeks, when it provided no benefit for anyone other than Gakushuu.

Gakushuu couldn’t even do him any favors-- surely he knew at this point that Gakushuu couldn’t convince the principal to raise his allowance, much less Korosensei’s pay. 

Gakushuu read the feedback for the packet he turned in last week. 

_ Asano-kun, _

_ Excellent work! I thought your use of tentacles in a sonnet was very innovative; I thought your explanation of “postmodern irony” was a great touch. Your ability to weave in facts and narrative in your historical work was seamless, and I’m astonished by the simplicity of your proofs for such advanced math work. Your ethical analysis, while technically perfect, rang hollow-- putting your beliefs in and defending them with heart will cause your arguments to be even more convincing. Maybe ask Isogai or Nakamura for example work.  _

_ Lovely stuff. Glad to see you and Hazama hit it off. I would be interested in a verbal spar between you two, Karma, and Itona! Like a rap battle, only more venomous!! _

_ Korosensei _

_ PS: Next week includes career day! I’m sure you’ve thought about this before, but start thinking of possibilities you want to explore after this class-- if there is an after this class! _

He drew an octopus on it and provided more specific comments in-line on the work.

Well. He found new things to complain about. 

…

Gakushuu does the assigned homework. Gakushuu does the extra course packet. Gakushuu does his piano, vocal, and guitar warm-ups and plays a song he learned a long time ago. He should probably start learning a new song, but when he thinks about what he wants to learn next he just gets tired. Before there were plots and schemes and new tools to wow his peers and defeat the principal--- 

And now he’s just tired. Takebayashi invited him to go to a maid cafe, but that both sounded awful and tiring. He used to do so many things with so many people and he’s almost awed by all the energy he apparently used to have. 

Gakushuu finishes the notes on the book he and Hazama are reading. They’ve never formalized it, but by unspoken agreement they’ve agreed to switch off books. They’re both quick readers which means it's his turn to choose for their informal little book club.

He thinks  _ The Picture of Dorian Gray  _ would be a good choice. He hasn’t read it yet, but from what he’s heard, it’s gothic and funny and a bit mean. However, if he chooses it, she will read... certain things into it. 

The thing is, he’s not sure she’s wrong. He’s not sure she’s right either. When he imagines a relationship his mind just comes up with blank. From what he’s read, homosexuals often know from a young age that there’s something different about them. He suppose he might fall into that, knowing from a young age he was smarter and stronger than his peers, but he never has felt a particular affinity towards one sex or another.

Relationships mean vulnerability. Also, introducing them to his father. What a weakness that would be if he produced a incompetent partner. However, the opposite, a partner his father approved of, sounded awful. Either they will be an aid to his quest to defeat his father, or they won’t be. Either they’ll be someone Gakushuu will make compromises for, sacrifice his own goals for, everything he’s never done, or they will be the one to acquiesce to him and his goals. 

The gender of his future partner isn’t the problem. His father and him don’t talk outside of educational matters, so he doesn’t know definitely his father’s opinion, but they once discussed sociological issues regarding LGBT+ peoples, and he got the sense that his father despised discarding talented youths in the face of prejudice, but also thought it was foolish to openly flaunt a vulnerability. 

But these days Gakushuu feels like he’s all vulnerabilities. LIke a hermit crab without its shell, fleshy and easy to poke at. He misses his previous carapaces, his previous occupations to fill the time, his own belief in the character he played, perfect and pristine. Now all he has his motions, and apparently, burgeoning questions about his sexuality. 

So, screw it, might as well read the Wilde.

His language really has taken a turn for the worse after hanging around the Terasaka gang. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have now run out of my chapter bank, so I'll probably start updating more irregularly. Still aiming for once a week tho!


	8. Chapter 8

It’s a gloomy November morning, so of course Hazama spends her lunch hour outside, appreciating the nice weather and reading. 

She’s so thoroughly engrossed in her book, she doesn’t notice Nakamura sneak up on her.

“Ha! One for me, nil for Miss Japanese Scare Contest,” Nakamura says.

“Don’t go spreading the word,” she says as she bookmarks the page, “they might go revoking my title.”

Nakamura flops down next to her on the deck of the school, “good book?”

“I’m enjoying it. You would like it, it’s rather bitchy,” Hazama says.

Nakamura peaks over. Hazama is careful to still, to not breath in too deeply or blush or any other sign that she is in fact a dumb, fifteen year old girl with dumb, fifteen year old afflictions like attraction. “Hey! This is in English. Trying to steal my spot?” 

“No, I still prefer Japanese,” although it was true that the octopus had decided that the way to teach Hazama was through giving her various books. The science of poison was decently entertaining, “but Asano picked this book and I’m going along with it.” 

“Asano picked this book,” Nakamura says doubtfully.

“Mhmm,” Hazama agrees. 

“Asano, ex-student-president, chose for the two of you to read a book by Oscar Wilde?” Nakamura says doubtfully.

“I think he’s still trying to figure out who he is when he can’t be, you know, a middle school facist,” Hazama offers. “The book club is mostly because he’s bored.”

“He’s bored?” Nakamura says. “Bored in class E? This class E?” 

They take a second from their discussion to look at the scene unfolding. Okuda and Hara teamed up for an assassination involving poisoning Korosensei’s lunch. Instead, he grew two (non-functional) heads and was pretending to be King Ghidorah. Karma had climbed on Terasaka, claimed to be Godzilla, and was trying to stab at the mach-8 moon destroying home room teacher.

“Apparently,” Hazama says.

“Are  _ you  _ bored?” Nakamura asks, bluntly.

“Me?” Hazama asks surprised, “No, this is has been…” she’s not really sure if she has the vocabulary to end that sentence. Hazama spent so much of her life escaping life, holing away into her books, to the point where gruesome fantasy seemed more real than reality. She doesn’t feel that way anymore, and she knows why that is. 

“Great,” Nakamura sighs. “This has been great. I didn’t know school could be like this. I’m just worried when it all ends, what going back to normal will be like…”

“I mean, going back to normal is the best-case scenario here unless you’re really dreading high school,” Hazama points out. 

“I know, I’m just. I’ve liked getting the chance to be both happy and successful. I wasn’t really aware that was an option until I met Korosensei.”

She has a point. Hazama will not be continuing at this school next year, if there is a next year. And then what? It seemed unlikely that she’d choose the same school, considering her talents vs her career goals, as Terasaka or Yoshida or Nakamura. “You should join the book club,” Hazama blurts out.

“You think Asano’ll listen to my advice about goofing off and killing it in school?” Nakamura asks doubtfully.

“No, but I think you’ll be mean to him, and that’ll be funny,” Hazama says. Nakamura hums and changes the topic to what she’s reading, on the recommendation of Korosensei. Hazama had planned on finishing another chapter, but she finds herself enjoying the lilt to Nakamura’s voice as she explains the plot, as they watch Terasaka try to charge into low lying tree branches, getting leaves into Karma’s hair.

…

As if catching on to her and Nakamura’s thoughts on the future, the octopus introduces an idea they should’ve seen coming: career counseling. 

Technically, this is done every November, but usually their teacher isn’t planning to destroy Earth in March, so. She’s still mildly surprised. 

“If someone is able to kill sensei and the world ends up being safe, everyone must think about their futures after graduating middle school. But well… you’re unable to kill me, so this will likely be pointless,” Korosensei says. “You will each have an interview so please come to the staff room once you fill out your career goals. Of course, you may still carry out assassination during consulation.” 

As Korosensei leaves, the room breaks out into chatter. Despite four out of the five of them having set career goals, they’re absolutely going to make sure they max this free period out, and immediately turn to talk to each other. Other people get similar ideas, and the room mingles with each other, discussing possible options.

Terasaka boisterously starts shouting at people nearby. Probably, Hazama figures, because he has no idea what he wants to do and wants to make fun of other people’s choices to distract himself. 

Muramatsu and Yoshida’s wants are obvious. Hazama’s known she’s wanted to be a librarian since she was about six. Terasaka flutters around, gathering the other members of the “gang”

“Damn,” Yoshida says. “We’ve grown.” 

“I remember when we were just two idiots, following one bigger, dumber idiot. How time flies,” Muramatsu says.

“Question,” Itona asks. “Who exactly is in the Terasaka gang?”

“Me obviously,” Terasaka says. “Then these two,” pointing at Yoshida and Muramatsu, “are my bros, and we’ve been friends since first year. We got Hazama like a year and half ago.”

“Then,” Yoshida says, “Hara started coming to supervise the dumbassery, so she’s like. An honorary member. Volunteer babysitter. Adopted Terasaka and, by extension, the rest of us. Then Takebayashi started hanging out with us… because…” 

“I originally started tagging along on field trips because you left me to my own devices for the most part,” Takebayashi says, “although I concedeTerasaka’s… unconventional friend making tactics won me over.”

“And then you know how we got you to join, Itona,” Terasaka says. 

“Is Asano part of the gang because he got adopted by Hazama?” Yoshida asks. 

Asano, either because he has the ears of a bat, an uncanny intuition to when people are giving him attention, or just because they’re generally loud, responds, “I wouldn’t say I was adopted,” Asano says. Hazama turns around to look at him and notes he hasn’t written anything on his career sheet yet.

“I’m sorry to break it to you,” Takebayashi comments, “but from what I’ve been able to gather, I am not sure they know how to make friends outside of adoption. There is a reason why your speech signaled them out for antisocial behavior,”

“I haven’t adopted anyone,” Teraska lyingly lies, like a liar.

“Terasaka, how did we meet?” Hazama asks.

“Who plans on running away in March! It’s too cold at night. You didn’t bring a sweater and you made fun of our sick hideout,” Teraska blusters.

“I mean, that’s just a Terasaka thing,” Muramatsu defends, “the rest of us are normal.”

“You told me two days ago that Yoshida was your brother in spirit and, in a fraternal manner, the two of you would never be parted,” Itona says.

“Wow,” Hazama says, “that was a lot of words to say ‘no homo’” 

“That doesn’t count,” Yoshida says.

“Losers with codependent plans to open a combo bike/ramen say what?” Hazama asks acerbically. 

Yoshida scowls, “I’m not falling for that again, and you still don’t have an argument.”

“Do you or do you not have intricate ideas of how all you could hire all of your middle school companions?” 

“Look,” Muramatsu says, “it’s not our fault that all of our friends are either good at cooking or science, but would be bad with people, and might need to be hired someday.” 

“Oh shit,” Terasaka says, “can I put ramen chef as my backup occupation? I’m running out of ideas.” 

“I'm honestly so impressed you even have one, my guy,” Muramatsu says cheerfully, “I, too, have one idea,”

That’s true for most of them, it turns out. Her, Muramatsu, Yoshida, Terasaka, Itona all have exactly one idea. Takebayashi, Hara, and Asano (who only answers when she points at him) shake their heads when asked if they too have one idea.

“Oi, four eyes, go,” Terasaka commands.

“I’m thinking medicine, primarily,” Takebayashi says, “even if I do not follow in the footsteps of my family, I still think I would enjoy something where I felt… useful to society. Besides practicing, I’m interested in research in medicine or in chemistry.”

“Ugh, gross, responsible,” Teraska groans, “Hara?” 

“First choice, housewife, second choice, secretary,” Hara says brightly, “I also want to take a support role for socicety.”

Hazama here wrinkles her nose. Terasaka ponders it, “Do you think there’s a market for house husbands?” he asks.

Itona gives him a critical one-over, “perhaps if you learn some make-up skills,”

“He did get a 100 in home ec,” Muramatsu muses.

“You’d live your life that dependent on another?” Asano asks bluntly. 

“Well… if it was my super hot wife…” Terasaka says, although loses steam at Asano comments. Hazama knows that despite his appearance, he likes being relied on by the class… even if it was to just throw his body at the problem. 

Hara doesn’t bristle, at the comment, of course. She’s too mature for that. She does however say, “we’re all dependent on other people, whether it’s your students paying tuition at your school or your doctor relying on a nurse to get the bloodwork. We’re all in it together,”

Asano looks faintly sick. Hara decides to engage further, “what are your thoughts for your future career, Asano-kun?”

Asano doesn’t say anything at first, so the clowns rush to supply possible answers. 

“Is super-villian a career option in modern Japan?” Terasaka asks.

“He could be in a boy band,” Muramatsu says, “he’d probably make a good idol.” 

“Teacher,” Yoshida says, “I have literally never heard him talk about something not tangentially related to school.”

Asano, ignoring the others, replies to that suggestion at least, “Definitely not being a teacher. I don’t particularly enjoy children,”

“You could teach middle schoolers or high schoolers,” Takebayashi suggests.

“Like I said, I hate children,” 

“You’re like 15 dude,” Terasaka says, “also who hates kids.”

“Hazama-san complained about children you apparently interacted with a few weeks ago,” Asano adds, “I turn 15 in January which means I have conclusive evidence that children are exhausting.”

“When in January?” Hazama asks curiously. She should do an astrological reading, predicting hyper specific events and claiming it was the stars was always fun, although even Terasaka was catching on that some of her predictions (you shall look like a fool in class today) may have less to do with mercury being in retrograde.

“January 1st,” Asano says promptly.

“1/1? As in, one-one? You found a way to get first among birthdays?” Terasaka asks incredulously. 

“I mean, I had very little to do with it personally,” Asano drawls sarcastically. 

“So if not following daddy’s footsteps and one-up’ing him there, what do you want to do?”

“I’m… not exactly sure,” Asano admits.

“You seem like the person to have planned out their life twenty years ahead of time,” Hazama says. Takebayashi looks troubled at Asano’s comment. Hmm. 

“Not all class E students are allowed back into the main school,” Asano says, “I don’t know what my father’s future plans for me are, which makes planning what next year will look like, which makes planning my college years difficult, which makes my career planning difficult.”

“I’m sure Korosensei plans on us kicking serious ass on the high school placement exams,” Muramatsu says. 

“I wonder,” Asano says.

“You could leave,” Terasaka says, unexpectedly serious, “if you want to go somewhere else, you could leave.” 

“I don’t particularly have the financial means for that,” Asano says.

Terasaka rolls his eyes, “ don’t pretend you couldn’t get a scholarship where you’d want to go.”

“Go to basket weaving school,” Hazama suggests, “win a full-ride to Japan’s finest clown college.” 

“If you could do anything and go anywhere,” Itona starts, “where would you want to go?” It’s an unusual thing to have Itona interact directly like this. But then again, Itona and Takebayashi know first hand the dual-edge sword of wanting and hating your parents. Hazama’s only ever been on the latter end of the scale. She thinks that’s where Asano is too.

He doesn’t say anything. Hara prompts, “was there a time that stands out to you as particularly happy?” 

“I liked my time abroad,” Asano says, “especially with Kevin. No one knows anything about Japanese educational systems in America.” 

“So go to school in America,” Hazama says, “and figure it out from there. You’re fairly capable at everything not involving class E and your father,”

“Hm,” Asano says, clearly a little put out at the suggestion that there’s things he’s not capable at, despite the large amount of evidence not on his side. 

...  
  


Hazama has her discussion with Korosensei. Or, well. Sort of discussion. 

His head is so swollen. “Do you even plan on listening to me?”

He mutters something about high-sodium bentos before going on to being an actual professional teacher and asking about her career aspirations. 

“Well, I’ve always been interested in the written world. To be somewhere quiet, surrounded by books all day, would be the dream. Something like a librarian at a huge library or something,”

“A reasonable goal for you,” Korosensei nods, “I thought you might say something like that. Here are some job postings for various librarian jobs across Japan-- from local libraries to research institutions. Am I right in assuming you’d prefer something… less customer facing?” 

“Yeah,” Hazama says. 

“You can complete your certification without a graduate degree,” Korosensei says, “but considering the scholastic requirements and language proficiencies, you’ll need to get into a good university.”

Hazama hums in agreement.

“Which means you’ll want to go to an excellent, humanities focused high school. Which is different from what I’m recommending for the rest of the Terasaka gang.”

“Yeah,” Hazama says. She knows. She’s been included, of course, on the various plans to keep the gang going. But ultimately, it makes more sense to split to stay together. The rest of the boys-- Yoshida, Muramatsu, Itona-- will probably go into vocational-focused high schools. Terasaka doesn’t know what he wants, so he might tag along. But next year, it will probably be Hazama alone. Again. “I’ve done being by myself before, I can handle it again,”

“You are an introvert by nature, which is nothing to be ashamed of,” Korosensei agrees. “But I think you should consider keeping an open heart in your next school,”

“Oh?”

“Would the Hazama at the beginning of the year made an attempt to befriend Asano?”

“I mean, he is  _ very  _ fun to bully.”

He shrugs with his tentacles, “I have the greatest of faith in you Hazama-san. Unusual as the paths you might tread be, I admire your self-possession. Many in the class could learn from you about knowing and embracing exactly what you are.”

Hazama feels… uncomfortable with that statement, but she can’t exactly pin down why. “Speaking of things in my possession…” Hazama says pulling out a book, “there’s this interesting tome I found about hexes and cures.”

When she leaves, he has spikes sticking out of his head. 

...

Everyone seems contemplative at the end of the day after meeting with Korosensei. The future, if there is one, is murky. Korosensei has led them all onto a surprisingly bright path, but come March, he won’t be able to guide them anymore. In the face of such self-reflection, the Terasaka gang defaults to their natural state: hooliganism. 

“Ayy, Takebayashi… do you think today would work for you regarding… the plan?” Terasaka asks, sidled up to the boy.

“I suppose I could make time after cram school,” Takebayashi assents. He’s progressed so far, she marvels. Actively committing semi-crimes with his friends in the evening, who would’ve thought.

Itona and Yoshida are in, Muramatsu has to work at his dad’s shop, but might come at the very end. They invite Hara, because this is an activity that might be good with some adult supervision, but she declines, citing a need to babysit her various siblings. Realistically, if one of them loses a finger, they’ll have the best person in the class with them anyways.

Then Terasaka does something surprising: he invites Asano along.

“Me?” Asano asks stupidly, “...why?”

Terasaka shrugs, “You’ve got something better to do? Gonna stare at a blank wall in your creepy room instead?”

“What exactly is this activity,” he asks suspiciously.

“We’re not going to murder you in the woods--,” Terasaka says dismissively.

“For one thing, it’d be too obvious,” she says in aside to Itona who nods. 

“---we’re going to fuck around with fireworks!” Terasaka announces excitedly. 

“We will practicing recently acquired knowledge of explosives to explore a new assassination venture,” Takebayashi clarifies. 

“Why?”

“Rapid deployment of anti-sensei material which is also sense-disorienting might be useful in a bigger assassination attempt,” Takebayashi says rationally.

“‘Cuz me, Yoshida, and Muramatsu found this shack that sold fireworks without checking id, and it’ll be fun,” Terasaka says. 

Itona translates, “Small children find bright lights and loud noises fun, making it an activity worthy of Terasaka’s pursuit. Four-eyes will prevent us from losing an eye.” 

“...sure,” Asano says. “Why not.” 

They make plans to meet up on the mountain in the evening. As they walk down after class, she catches up to Terasaka.

“That was unexpectedly nice of you. I mean, I knew you would adopt him one day, but I wasn’t expecting you to warm up so soon,”

“I ain’t warming up to nothing,” Terasaka says, demonstrating his grasp of the double-negative, “but you and the shitty nerd are making efforts to befriend him, and I might as well try to encourage the social skills of you weirdos.” 

“If you’re going to adopt new members of the gang, is it too much to ask that we get a woman? Someone to help balance the excess of testosterone?”

“Okay one, there’s no way pipsqueak tentacle fucker has hit puberty, so. Two, Nakamura mentioned wanting to ride Yoshida’s bike. If you wanna invite her, you should feel more than welcome to,”

“I’ll kill you,” she says, without heat. Terasaka moves to ruffle her hair, in a way she’s seen him do with his little sisters, before thinking better of it and jamming his hand back into his pocket. 

…

When they come back the next day, they come to news very upsetting to some of them, that Nagisa’s mom might have bribed the right people and wanted him to transfer to main school. 

Terasaka, and to a lesser extent Muramatsu and Yoshida were upset.

“She can’t do this,” Terasaka fumed.

“I mean, she’s his parent, she absolutely can, but didn’t you almost get him killed? Twice?” Hazama asks.

“That was six months ago, Hazama!” he says, “He’s one of the best assassins here, we can’t let him transfer,”

“Him?” Asano asks incredulously from the back, his loud seatmate having moved closer to the front to brainstorm with his best friend, meaning Asano has no choice but to overhear the Terasaka gang’s commentary. “He’s not particularly impressive in the training,”

“Kid’s a born assassin,” Terasaka says, thumping his chest, “also, we’re not letting anyone leave this class, again.” 

“I wouldn’t fret, I doubt the principal will allow it,” Asano says.

“Really? Wouldn’t it be helpful, like being in 3-E sucks so bad, parents will pay money to have them leave?” Muramatsu asks.

“After the last transfer student? When Nagisa clearly doesn’t want to leave? Besides, only one transfer student is usually allowed per year. Too much would disrupt the system,” Asano says. 

“I thought if you were in the top 50…?” Yoshida asks.

Asano shrugs, “Hazama-san, you were in the top fifty, right? Were you asked?”

“Nope,” she says popping the p, “and like Nagisa, it’s not like I don’t have parents that would leap at the chance.” 

“Holy shit, can you imagine if it was Hazama instead of Takebayashi who transferred?” Muramatsu speculates. 

“I don’t think she was ever considered as an acceptable pawn for that ploy,” Asano weighs in.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me,” she says.

“...was that a compliment?” Yoshida asks. Shrugs all around.

“Korosensei will have to meet with the parent nonetheless, and it’d probably be better for Shiota-san if Korosensei convinces her to let him stay...:” 

“Some of the rest of the class is sticking around after class to see how it turns out,” Terasaka says, “I’ll see what happens.” 

The conversation turns back to normal matters, but Asano taps on Hazama’s shoulder to ask her a question.

“Is Shiota-san… you know?” he asks. 

“Gay?” she clarifies.

“Not quite, I mean do they…” 

“Oh, you mean are they trans?” Hazama says. “No clue, but he uses male pronouns.” 

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Asano says, “I just didn’t want to do anything rude or insensitive.” 

“Of course not,” she soothes semi-mockingly. Are they, you know. 

Taking in her tone, he says, “I just. I mean, there’s 28 students in class E, and I know you’ve implied you’re not straight…”

“And we’ve made references to another queer student besides me, and then if there’s you questioning your sexuality, plus a trans student, it’d be a little bit too much gay in class E?”

“...I wouldn’t want to think that was a factor for demotion to his classroom,” Asano says.

She doesn’t quite know what to say to that. She could say things about systematic prejudice, about which kids are most likely to have stress at home which could cause interference with students, about how some of the kids are clearly here not for academic issues, but because they stood out as being different. But Asano doesn’t seem to be talking literally about that, so she just says, “there’s 29 students in 3-E,” and leaves it at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a white author, it's so weird making decisions about honorifics. Like on the one hand, it's a useful way to give information about the speaker and their perception of their relationships, but on the other, it's a dicey issue to use cultural norms from a culture you're not familiar with. Although, ignoring the cultural norms also seems bad? Anyways, I try my best, let me know if I'm doing anything wrong. 
> 
> Other than that, like I said the pace is going to slow down on my chapter posting, so I'll see you next Monday!


	9. Chapter 9

“...So, she started screaming, like who do you think that you are to talk to me like that and, like, that he should know his place,” Terasaka says, “shit was scary.”

“His place? Isn’t Koro-sensei job advising children on the future?” Yoshida asks. 

Terasaka shrugged, “I don’t know, this is the bitch who wanted to turn her son into a daughter to live through... them, so I don’t know if her logic was sound-- especially since she later tried to get Naigasa to burn down the school.”

“I’m sorry,  _ what _ ,” Asano says. Asano has given up the ghost on being allowed to eat his bento alone in class E. So, he usually either sits near Chiba, who sits in front of him and doesn’t force him to talk, or, when Karma’s being particularly annoying, with the Terasaka gang, seeing as when Karma comes over to bother Asano, he inevitably gets waylaid by making fun of Terasaka. 

“Yeah, according to Karma, she tried burning down the school and then was stopped because an assassin with a whip,” 

“That’s a highly ineffective method of killing people,” Hazama notes.

“But kinky,” Itona chimes in.

“It’s insane,” Asano says, disbelieving. Really missed out with never meeting the insane-flower-seller-turned-assassin. So unaware of how batshit this class has gotten. “Has she figured out about the… you know”

“Moon-destroying super creature? Nah,” Terasaka says.

“Although the main school has allegedly gone off the rails since October, I am fairly certain they would not accept an arsonist,” Asano says.

“What would’ve happened to us?” Muramatsu wonders. “Like, we’re still paying full tuition, they’d have to put us somewhere.”

Terasaka shrugs, “shitty, narcissistic parents who think only of themselves and their kids as like, fucked-up reflections of themselves are a fucking plague.”

“Does A class have the same percentage of sob-stories?” Muramatsu asks.

“I don’t particularly care for Ren’s father, the man is a lech,” Asano says. “Many of the parents have sexist attitudes towards the girls when it comes to choosing careers.” Principal Asano always despaired, he wanted successful alumni, not just women who got into Todai for the sole purpose of marriage. Principal Asano despised housewife culture, he believed it was important for the strong to crush competition and to never be dependent. 

“I mean, your Dad obviously sucks,” Terasaka says, “I’m amazed he found a human woman to reproduce with him.”

Asano doesn’t particularly like talking about his dad, so he leaves it at “he can be manipulative,” and goes back to sullenly picking at his food. 

Terasaka looks pensive, which means one of two things: either he has indigestion or he’s actually thinking a thought. The latter might bode poorly.

…

The latter boded poorly. During PE, they had been split into various splits. Her, Itona, Asano, Takebayashi, Kanzaki, Karma, and Nagisa were a section. And once they’d gone, they found themselves quickly kidnapped by the octopus. 

He handed out t-shirts. They said DUBIOUS PARENTING SUPPORTING GROUP. 

“What,” Karma said speaking for all of them, “the actual fuck, sensei.”

“I read in an educational manual that feeling solidarity can reduce the feeling of loneliness in youths with difficult home lives,” Korosensei says.

Apparently, Korosensei couldn’t decide on a color they’d all like. So it was gray. He also couldn’t choose a font they’d all like. So it was just the basic kanji, in pt 12 font. 

Incredible. 

Kanzaki slipped hers on and had the audacity to look cute. The octopus, encouraged by one student participating, told them “that they should feel free to talk about their emotions.” The rest of them stared in mute horror.

_ Was this your doing  _ she texts Terasaka.

_ Mb we had a convo  _ he replies

_ You’re dead to me,  _ she texts for the hundredth time. 

┐(‘～` )┌ he texts back.

  


...  
  
---  
  
...

“We’re not going to go full-throttle on this until a few days from now,” Korosensei says, “but I thought it might be a good idea to introduce the school festival, get those creative juices flowing,” he says, undulating his noodly appendages. The class, in general, looks unenthused. 

Hazama had always chosen to do a prep job, something she’d be able to do far in advanced, preferably alone, and then avoided the actual crowds-and-interacting-with-people-part, so she’s actually managed to skip the festival the last two years. Nonetheless, she knows how into it everyone else gets.

She also knows how much class 3E gets made fun of for being pathetic at this task. While they can always point to academic performance as proof of 3-E’s scholastic inferiority or, in years without pole-toppling, the exhibition games as athletic inferiority, the school festival shows the out-and-down incapableness of the class of working harmoniously and to follow through with a task.

She wasn’t one of those people who made fun of their upper-classmen exiled here, but she was never one to sympathize with them either. Until she was one, of course, and she realized what it must have felt like for them. To be left out by something other than choice. To either to try desperately to prove that you’re not the losers the main campus thought you were and fail, or to have fully given up hope and accept that you were the losers they thought you were.

Even now Mimura chimes in, “it’ll be hopeless. The mountain is too much of a disadvantage.”

“Or is it?” Korosensei ponders dramatically. 

“Main campus will be doing something bonkers,” Nakamura says. “Although, it’ll be rushed. I assume that A… person may have been in charge of that task.”

On cue, the entire class turns to look at Asano. 

“I had some potential sponsors lined up,” Asano admits. Whispers surround the class. Why the fuck does a fourteen year old have future sponsors. “But I doubt class A will be able to effectively convince and utilize them.” 

“...Asano can be our secret weapon! Heel-face turn!” Fuwa cheers excitedly.

“I can’t use my potential sponsors, either,” Asano informs them. “My presentations were all based around projections from past festivals which is not something that favors us particularly well.”

“Ugh,” Karma says, “please be either more useful or more interesting.”

Asano rolls his eyes. Korosensei, unfazed, says “your old sensei has some tricks up his sleeve. I believe there are ways to turn our disadvantages into advantages...” 

“Some advantages are insurmountable,” Asano says. Bitch. Like he didn’t say that, to them, before being surmounted by them.

Karma, at Asano’s statement looks pensive. Like Terasaka, that also bodes poorly. Probably not for her, but you know. Poorly. 

…

“Hazama, have you started the assignment due on Thursday?” Asano asks.

Unusually for her, who was a procrastinator even before she started hanging out with the Terasaka gang, the answer was “Actually, yeah. Have you?”

“I have… ideas,” Asano says. In Hazama’s experience, that means ‘no’. It wasn’t really a surprise he didn’t know where to start. It wasn’t the kind of task they gave at main school. They were supposed to translate an excerpt from their Literature class into English then creatively reinterpret it into one of the time periods they were learning about. Knocking out all three humanities courses in one assignment. 

“You have nothing,” Hazama stated.

“Unfortunately,” he admits. 

“You could just sign your name on what I’m doing, it’s what Terasaka usually does” Hazama says. It’s a group assignment.

“I couldn’t possibly,” he demurred. 

“It’s me and Fuwa’s,” she says. It’s possible that Asano was really that much of a goodie-two-shoes, but considering the “bring foreign exchange students to get an advantage to one up 3E/expel a student”, she doubted it. Much more likely he was worried about putting his name on less than perfect work.

“Why aren’t you working with Terasaka’s ilk?” Asano asks. 

“Differing creative vision,” she says. The boys decided what they wanted to do was a dating-sim with  _ Tale of Genji _ . Itona, Terasaka, Yoshida, and Takebayashi were collaborating on this… masterpiece.

“There’s nothing worse than deadweight on a group project,” Asano says.

“Did you let other people contribute to your projects?” Hazama asks.

“I let them submit their work,” Asano says, “but I may have made a few edits before handing in the cumulative.”

“Cool,” Hazama says, clearly in a tone that shows she doesn’t find him or his maniac ways cool, “you could make edits and then submit it with your head-held high… if you do me a favor.”

“Ah, I see,” Asano says, looking more comfortable at the idea of doing less than his fair share on this project now, “a quid pro quo. What’s the project and what’s the favor?” 

“Tale of Heike, but with post-war companies, obviously ending in murder and corporate sabatoge. Fuwa outlined and did the translation, I’m doing the dialogue and art.”

“Can you draw?”

“According to Korosensei, fourth-best at art among the girls.” 

“Why was that divided by gender?” Asano asks.

“No idea,” Hazama says. 

“What’s the favor?” Asano asks.

“My tarantula had babies, and I need Kurahashi’s assistance in relocating the spawn. But Kurahashi, although wise about tarantulas is....”

“I haven’t talked to her much yet,” Asano says, “but she seems generally pleasant.” 

“Exactly, she’s pleasant. She’s so sunny and cheerful it hurts. Please assist with the small-talk part of getting help for my darling Tsuchigumo and I’ll let you free ride on your worst nightmare-- creative collaborative work.”

“I’ve made multiple award winning dioramas. My posterboard skills are undefeated,” Asano says.

“You want to wait until you think of something, do it alone, and, knowing you, kill yourself to make it perfect, go ahead,” Hazama says. “But if you want to take the easy way out, Kurahashi coming over to my house at 1800. Don’t be late-- I’ll be trying to get you all in and out before my parents come home.” 

…

Kurahashi and Asano arrive exactly on the dot. She shows them up to her room. She doesn’t want to spend that much time in the rest of the house, much less have other people see it.

She wonders what they see. A lot of white, probably. Dust sheets on most of the furniture. No paintings. A few pictures-- her parents on their wedding day, some of her when she was a child. Her hair was tied back, straight, and shiny. Her house is like a museum, or a mausoleum. No signs of life.

Unfortunately, the door to the doll room is open, so they also get a peak into that room. Yeah. Kurahashi sees it, eyes widen, and smiles nervously. Asano sees it and doesn’t react.

“My mother collects dolls,” she explains.

“Oh,” Kurahashi says, “does she always... uh… display them that way?” That way meaning, no furniture in the room, just dolls in a circle, on shelves, unblinking eyes staring at household inhabitants.

“Yes,” Hazama says and leaves it at that.

Asano watches as her and Kurahashi deal with her tarantula. There are… so many children. Hazama isn’t even sure when/how Tsuchigumo got pregnant. Kurahashi explains how to take care of the spiderlings and when/where she can drop them off. It’s a miracle she’s been allowed one pet spider, although “allowed” might be too strong of a word for it. Her mother doesn’t come into her room and it’s not like she asks for permission to do things.

Unfortunately, it takes time. And her mother arrives home for dinner. She goes to tell her parent that they have guests.

Her mother shrieks, “I thought I told you I didn’t want those nasty delinquents in my home again!”

“Different guests,” she says.

“Oh,” her mother says, temper mercurial as ever, “that’s alright then.”

She goes back upstairs, unaware of her mother’s machinations: inviting everyone to dinner and forcing them to stay by saying she already made them a plate.

Her father apparently is working late on a client. It’s just the four of them. Her mother isn’t really a bad cook, per se. Food is part of her job and all. But she knows that some people find the palate discontenting, too sweet. Asano lips twitch down, his equivalent of a grimace, when eating the rice. She sweetens it, not with sugar of course, but with low-cal, fruit-based substitutes.

Her mother makes light conversation. She clearly adores Kurahashi, just as she feared. She may have had an ulterior motive when bringing Asano besides tempering Kurahashi's radiating sweetness with bitchiness, maintaining her shadowy aura's homeostasis.

Her mother is complimenting Kurahashi on her hair, talking about where to buy her bobbles and clips. It’s very normal until her mother reaches out and strokes Kurahashi’s hair. 

“Wow,” her mother says, like this a totally normal thing to do, “your hair is so pretty and so soft! What do you use?”

“...conditioner?” Kurahashi says, usually cheerful girl, clearly slightly unnerved.

“Kirara-chan, why don’t you do your hair like Kurahashi-san?” 

“I use conditioner, mother,” she says, eyes focused on her food.

“What did you say you did again?” Asano says, willing to take the bullet and ameliorate the adult. The two have a nice conversation about her work, where Asano listens attentively and asks questions in all the right places. But, she did bring Asano for a reason, which becomes immediately clear when her mother starts talking about how cute Asano was, and how cute he and if he was dating someone, maybe Kurahashi…?

If it was just Kurahashi, it’d be just a straight (ha) comparison between her and her classmate. But her mother loves love, and so will go focus on those two instead of her daughter. Using a decoy in combat isn’t honorable, but she’s an assassin, so. 

Asano seems panicked, “I’m fairly busy with my studies, I’m not particularly interested in romantic companionship at this point.”

Her mother coos, “oh, how responsible! But I thought you were in that delinquent class Kirara-chan. Surely, you don’t need to work that hard.”

“We actually work harder because of that,” Kurahashi says with a smile, without any hint of bite.

“I didn’t mean to offend! We all have our strengths. If you’re not smart, you can always be pretty. Right, Kirara-chan?”

Normally, she’d probably say something, start a fight, but she doesn’t want to set her mom off in front of company, “Right.”

“Say, why did you say you were over again?”

“Oh,” Kurahashi says, Hazama tries to signal to abort, “to---”

“--work on a collaborative project,” Asano says, “Kurahashi is actually leaving shortly, but me and Hazama are going to go finish up.”

“Oh!” her mother says, “well, it was very nice to meet you two! You’re very polite young people. Not like that horrible Terasaka boy… a good influence on my good girl. I’ll clean up let you guys go to work!” 

Hazama walks Kurahashi to the door. “Thank you for helping with Tsuchigumo.”

“No problem, I love bugs,” Kurahashi says, “let me know if you need anything else. Class E has to stick together, right?” 

Kurahashi seems like she might go for a hug, but decides against it and holds her hand out for a fist bump. Hazama is pathetically grateful. After seeing Kurahashi off, she goes upstairs. 

“Interesting room decor,” Asano says, inspecting the blue flowers on her nightstand, “I like the plants.” 

“That’s aconite,” Hazama informs him. “It kills werewolves and also people.”

Asano backs away slowly, “are all the plants poisonous?”

“Everything is poisonous, in the right dosage,” she says. “Too much of anything can kill anyone.” She doesn’t say any more, trusting Asano to realize that no, the sage plant was not in fact poisonous. 

Asano sits down on her bed as Hazama pulls out what she has done so far of her drawings and the outline. She hands the completed pages and the script to Asano, who immediately starts nitpicking the punctuation. 

“Keep the door open!” her mother calls out from below. She sighs and gets up to do the task. Her mother, both worried and excited at the possibility of a teen pregnancy. 

“Does she have any inking that you’re… you know…” Asano says.

“A lesbian? No,” Hazama says. “She’d have a better shot at guessing I’m an assassin. My mother doesn’t acknowledge things that don’t fit her fantasy of what the world  _ should  _ be like. Thus, I have silk dresses and rice for dinner, a big house bought with debt, only half furnished on my parent’s pay checks.”

“Where is your Dad?” Asano asks.

“Work” Hazama says. “He’s gone a lot. He’s pretty gone when he’s home too.”

“I see. My condolences” Asano says.

“Where’s your mom?” she asks, wanting to turn it around a bit.

“Dead.”

“My condolences.” She’s not surprised. It’s hard to imagine a woman staying with the principal. Then again, it’s hard to imagine a child with him either.

“Let’s just finish the project,” Asano says, closing the books on that discussion.

Hazama is actually a decent drawer. Not Sugaya levels, but enough that she can reasonably make figures, competently set scenes. She specializes, of course, in gore, blood splatters and torn eyeballs and the like. It’s what she used to doodle in her notes back in main school.

(She was not surprised when she got the note that she’d be moving down to Class E, even though there were more than a couple of students worse than her academically allowed to continue)

“Don’t you think this is a bit… much?” Asano says.

“It’s on brand,” she says.

“Your brand,” Asano says, “could deal with being revamped a little. Or… less vamped?” 

“I don’t feel the need to sell myself out for meaningless popularity contests,” Hazama says.

“There’s nothing wrong with putting on a public face.”

“Do you have a private face?”

“I could say the same to you too,” Asano replies coolly. 

“Do you have a single connection, hobby, friendship, whatever, to anything that’s not focus-tested for mass-market appeal?” Hazama says.

“There’s nothing wrong with making strategic choices,” Asano says, “I’ve found it’s much more convenient to be liked than disliked.”

“Good for you,” Hazama says. “Really, truly, how many friends do you have? How well liked are you _now_?” Asano had a costume, cool, collected, effortlessly good at anything while still trying hard at everything and everything he did seemed to be props maintaining the illusion. But a single wrong light cue prevents the rabbit from disappearing, leaving just a stupid boy in a stupid hat. 

Asano stiffens. She hit a nerve. “I had as many as I needed to accomplish my goals. I still do.”

“Wanting friends,” Hazama starts, “is not a stupid goal. it’s okay to want human things. I know you hear “normal” and think weak or pedestrian, but you are, in fact, human. We all have soft, fleshy hearts, full of blood, wanting things, wanting people. It’s more illogical to try to reason with the animal that is the self that you’re stupid for wanting than a hug than it would be to occasionally to seak out the warmth of companionship.”

“How many hugs do you give out?” Asano says, unexpectedly nasty. 

She shrugs. There is quiet for just a moment, but then Asano stands up. His mask is in place. 

“It’s rich for you to be lecturing me on what it means to be human,” Asano says coldly. “You’re not a human at all--”

“--Alas,” she quips.

“You’re not a person, you’re a character," Asano continues, ignoring her quip. She wonders if he's rehearsed what he's about to say in his head. "You’ve written yourself a role where your only personality trait is ‘gothic weird girl’. You lean into your unappealing interests so hard so that you don’t have to worry about making friends or being rejected or feeling stupid. If you’re consistently mean, if you’re consistently off-putting, you don’t have to worry about failing to be liked, because you never tried in the first place. You’re reducible to three bullet points on a notecard.” Asano says. He’s actually smiling a little bit. Like he’s giving a presentation. Like he’s reciting an interesting fact. 

“Are you done?” she asks. It’s quiet in her room again.

“Yes,” he says, and then leaves. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name of Hazama's spider is the name of a category of demon. Basically, she named her bat vampire. Still works. 
> 
> Fun fact: the details of Kurahashi coming over to help with her spider, and Hazama feeling out of sorts with how cheerful she is, is canon and in one of the data books.
> 
> Congrats to the commentor who mentioned a club. You guessed correctly.
> 
> This isn't my favorite chapter-- 95% of it is transitional. However, we got to those nice little character insights into Hazama and Asano. I don't really believe in "real" people or not, but I do think both of them play-up a part to get people to dislike/like them. And we're clearly heading into the main conflicts (school festival and finals are back to back in the manga).


	10. Chapter 10

Gakushuu, after years of dealing with his father, has trained himself (mostly) out of excuses, but that doesn’t mean that this hasn’t been an exceedingly difficult week, okay? 

It’s really just three things. But three things were enough. Three things were more than enough.

1)

First, there was his talk with Korosensei about his future he had earlier in the week. Gakushuu was the second to last person to go. He and Shiota-san had a brief stare off, but frankly he got tired of waiting, and there was something unnervingly patient about the boy(?). 

“Asano-kun!” the octopus said, greeting him cheerily, “I must admit, I’m curious to what you put.”

“What happened to you?” Gakushuu said disbelievingly.

“Poison, salty-foods, a curse, paint-based poison,” Korosensei rattled off.

“What?”

“I try to encourage my students' hobbies and extracurricular work.” 

“I see,” Gakushuu said.

“I don’t really think you do, but nonetheless. What are your ideas for the future?”

Wordlessly, Gakushuu passed him a blank sheet.

“I must admit, I wasn’t expecting you of all students to submit incomplete work,”

“Well,” Gakushuu said, somewhat pettily, “I guess class E is rubbing off on me.”

“This is the first work turned in unfinished in roughly a month disregarding extenuating family circumstances and pre-discussed conflicts,” Korosensei said.

“Really? Akabane has turned in all his work including this pointless assignment?” 

“Yes actually. Karma-kun after the first term finals has been a rather diligent student. He wants to become a bureaucrat. Perhaps Nagisa-kun hasn’t completed his assignment, but 27 students have. Even Ritsu! ” 

“Well,” Gakushuu said, somewhat pettily, “I guess I am just exceptional.” Gakushuu can’t remember ever talking to an adult this casually in his entire life-- he kept his guard up for teachers, coaches, and parental figures alike. The only authorities who would describe him as anything other than a polite young man were the adults he occasionally had to threaten-- and even then, he preferred restrained, cool malice to blatant disrespect. This might change if Akabane became an authority figure. He might be forced to flee Japan if that becomes reality. 

“You certainly are,” Korosensei said sincerely. Gross. “Now, let’s talk about your options for the future."

Gakushuu just kind of listlessly shrugged, “I’m sure you think that my future options are limitless.”

“Do you not?”

“Before my… transfer, my career options were “CEO” and “corporate slave”, although I will admit I had a preference for the former over the latter.” 

“Not many 14 years old aspire for corporate slave, or many people at all, for that matter.”

“Either I would surpass my father and conquer the world,” Gakushuu said, “or I would lose and forever be under his control.”

Korosensei hums, “that’s quite the binary.”

“Unary, now, I suppose.” 

“I think you have more options than that, Asano-kun.”

“Not really. I’m fourteen. I’ll go to what school my father lets me,” Gakushuu said. Parental consent forms were things that existed in locations where people weren't aware exacty who your father was. 

“In four years, you will have much more options. Japan slots it’s students in very early-- but based on your test scores, I have no doubt you’ll be able to thrive in adversity, so long as you keep your head up and stay running. If you wanted to, there’s truly nothing in Japan I think you couldn’t do. More to the point, it’s a big world, and if you feel your father controls all of Japan, we can discuss ways for you to travel outside of Japan. Nakamura-chan, for instance, is planning on studies abroad.” 

“In four years,” Gakushuu said bitterly, “I’ll be the same person. My father’s education is absolute. It’s not something that can be overcome or surpassed.”

“I out-coached him in baseball,” Korosensei said smugly.

“One way or another, you won’t be teaching next year. Or the year after. Or the year after that. But I will still be living under that man’s roof, and he’ll tell me what’s happening to next year's 3-E. Some of the students have already been picked out, Yamamoto Dai for instance is a known trouble maker with poor grades, who’ll either be dead by planetary explosion or be sitting here, in this building, where there'll be some new shitty teacher and there will be no hope.” 

“Bleak,” Korosensei said, “I feel like I can better understand how you and Hazama-san get along now. Asano-kun, clearly there’s more things you need to work through than I can teach in this one meeting-- or maybe in all our time together. But I would caution you against black and white thinking. I would not consider someone whose lost 40 times and succeeded 50 to be a loser. But someone who never tried, who contented themselves as a big fish in a small pond, and thus never was challenged and never improved an utter failure. Recovery and resilience are learned skills. The man who climbs ten steps is not at the top of the mountain, but he’s higher than the man who never started at all. Improving one person’s life out of seven billion may not seem to matter, but it makes a difference for that one person.”

“I know there are people better than me. I’ve always known. After all my main competitor…”

“Still is not as fast as the mach-10 teacher he employs. And I’m willing to put my crochet skills on the line against him as well.”

“Speed can’t solve everything. He will do everything he can to humiliate us in the upcoming cultural festival and crush us in finals.”

“I didn’t win the baseball match because 3E could compare with the baseball club. We won because are goal wasn’t just winning, it was subversion. Main campus’s inability to cope with unexpected difficulty and unpredictable situations won us the battle in both baseball and pole toppling,” Korosensei said. “But, if we’re going to win, we’re going to need everyone to help. What was your plan to assure victory for class A?”

“Cafe mostly supported by myself and the virtuosos role as school idols, as well as corporate sponsors. The goal was to feed them mindless entertainment and repeatedly milk them of their money using the teens fear of missing out on the next cool thing to keep them there.”

“Hm,” Korosensei said, “I see potential. Do you have any materials prepared?”

“Obviously, I complied a powerpoint. And a binder with a few preparatory materials.”

“Would you mind bringing them in? Sensei has the makings of a plan.”

2)

And then the day after that there was thing the was his father: 

The principal and him did not talk, outside of matters relating to education. But unfortunately the principal’s definition of what subjects encompassed education was broader than most. The second thing that happened that ruined his week was the result of such a lesson. 

His principal had been quizzing him on game theory, behavioral economics, and some basic programming questions. In retrospect, the principal had probably been deliberately leading him to this encounter.

“I see class 3A is planning on an arcade for the cultural festival. It’s interesting, you always said that video games were a pointless distraction from reality and an example of rats getting themself addicted voluntarily.”

“Well, I defer to my student leaders. It’s really quite precious, they’ve been working on it since midterms. I’m certainly impressed on how they’ve adjusted the situation to fit their strengths, and the contributions of every member of class A.”

“3-A couldn’t charm the sponsors I lined up, could they,” Gakushuu was never blind enough to not notice how… deficient some members of the main campus were. Araki was fairly normal, but Seo, Koyama, and Ren were destined to be HR liabilities. 

“Perhaps they’ve learned from the adventures in pole toppling how to best prepare a battlefield to benefit the strengths of the army rather than the general.” 

“Perhaps.”

“Tell me, Asano-kun, speaking of your sponsors that 3-A couldn’t charm.... Are they still willing to support you on the mountain? What are the revenue projections for 3-E’s plan. Which is…?”

“...”

“Do you not have a plan? Have you given up?” the principal said. It was frankly a weird thing to say, even for the principal. Although Gakushuu suspected the man got genuine joy from tormenting middle schoolers, he usually only mocked his son after he lost. Perhaps he wanted class E to give up, but he was more suceeding at riling Gakushuu up, a mistake most people only made once. Perhaps the principal was playing some sort of game Gakushuu wasn’t aware of...

“Congratulations. You’ve won. You’ve thoroughly defeated your fourteen year old son. What do you want now?”

“I want, for once, to be impressed by you. I have given you opportunity after opportunity to succeed against 3-E and yet you have managed to seize defeat from the jaws of victory each and every time. You have two options: you will rise or you will fall. It’s all up to you, Asano-kun.”

Despite the depths of Gakushuu’s newfound numbness after his transfer, the principal still managed to spark not just a reaction, but a conflagration of rage. 

3) 

The third thing that ruined Gakushuu’s week was mostly his own fault. He really should have deleted that app. He really should have stopped reading that app. 

He really should have not looked at the crochet pattern for something to do with the cultural pattern. He really should have not drawn upon the combination of his knowledge around topology and fiber crafts and realized it was a doll. He should not have seen the colors and immediately matched the yarn shades-- specifically the light, orangey red and the purple.

Once upon a time, Gakushuu didn’t dread. He didn’t worry about bad things happening, because the major bad thing in his life was always happening, all the time, and everything else was easy. Once upon a time, there was nothing to dread, because he was admired and adored and number one in one hundred different things, and victory would come to him eventually as it always did.

Gakushuu dreaded things now.

…

Gakushuu wants this week to be over, except, he’s really not looking forward to what’s coming next.

“Next week is the cultural festival,” Sugino says, “and Shindo tells me main campus is pulling out all the stops.”

“What are they even doing, without Asano?” Nakamura asks, “They were more followers than leaders.”

Kataoka shakes her head, “I’ve heard that Suzuki, the VP, has stepped up. She’s not as… super human as Asano, but she’s very organized.”

“Can we please remember that he’s in the room and not inflate his ego  _ any  _ more?” Terasaka grumbles. No one listens. 

Takebayashi chimes in, “I still have access to the main campuses forums. They’re doing an arcade. Suzuki has family members who work at various video game companies… apparently they’re planning on having some pretty exciting demos as well as some games the class has coded themselves.”

“That seems like not the most effective money-making model,” Isogai says, “I mean, there’s fixed prices on how expensive everything can be.”

Takebayashi shakes his head, “That’s what’s smart about their pplan. The games are addictive. More to the point, they’re awarding tickets for the players to be entered into a raffle and hosting tournaments with grand prizes. I can’t say for certain, but I believe the plan is to lure people in the door, and trap them with the sunk-cost fallacy to keep on playing and spending.”

“Where did they get prizes? And don’t they have to serve food?”

Sugino shrugs, “Some of the prizes are apparently things like notes and tutoring. Main campus has gotten even harder, and with finals around the corner they’re even more eager to compete. Also, apparently the chairman had a ‘brief’ lesson on the basics of day trading…” 

“And,” Nakamura chimes in, “some of them are rich and probably willing to give up their game stations if it means utterly humiliating us. I don’t think the goal here is a narrow victory…” 

“Shindo also says…” and Sugino horrifyingly looks at Gakushuu with pity in his eyes, “they’re more rallied around hate than ever. They might see Asano as betraying them? Every classroom is apparently supporting 3-A. All 200 of them with the goal of crushing 3-E” 

“If we lose,” Kayano says, “won’t it have a lot to do with the fact we’re on the mountain? Rather than all the effort they’re putting in?”

“The items on the shop’s menu cannot cost more than 300 yen. Whereas special event items can cost up to 600 yen,” Hazama says. “Seeing as we’ll only be able to offer meals at the same prices, with cheap ingredients, and don’t have enough time to pull off something as elaborate as E class is doing…” 

“...tell us how to win,” Yoshida says, as someone with clear experience in whatever crazed thing Korosensei is planning. 

“It’s simple-- we’ll turn their strengths into weakness and our weakness into our strengths.”

Korosensei then laid out his plan. If 3-A wanted a super high-tech performance, they’d stay simple and rustic. If they were focusing on food as an afterthought, they’d make food the center piece. If the problem was the mountain’s remote location, they’d make it a draw and use the locally foraged fresh materials as their main selling point. 

“Asano,” Korosensei says seriously, “you play a crucial part in this plan.”

“I do?” Gakushuu says. “I’m afraid I’m not a very good cook.” He wasn’t lazy, but he was aware what role he played in this class. He has no doubts that he’s more of what class E is trying to defeat than as part of class E’s efforts.

“We have Muramatsu and Hara for that. And they’re what will keep us competitive. But we want a second blade, a thing in our back pocket to push us over the edge if it gets close. And I believe that’s you.”

“I could perform? I was planning on playing an instrument for the class A cafe, but I don’t think that would fit the theme of this.”

“You are a boy of many talents,” Korosensei says, “even though I believe you’ve started doubting the utility of any of them. I don’t blame you, your father has clearly adapted. He used you as an example of a strong person, but then when he needed to, turned that into rallying cry against you. But you too are capable of turning weakness into strengths.”

“I suppose,” Gakushuu says, thinking it over, “there are institutions other than mega-corporations I could talk too. Indie companies, local artisans… people who may be sympathetic to the story of end class.”

“Wonderful thinking,” Korosensei says, “please take Yada-chan with you, when you go.” 

“I’m not sure this will work,” Gakushuu cautions, “but I can do preliminary research, and set up some meetings.”

…

In the meantime, there are other preparations to be made. Ingredients to find. He’s not a talented artist like Sugaya or a talented cook like Muramatsu or Hara and he’s second to last in terms of knowing his way around the mountain (the robot has limited walking abilities).

So he’s put on fishing duty. With Terasaka.

Lots of sitting still quietly. With Terasaka. 

He’s actually impressed they manage to do over half an hours worth of fishing before the boy explodes.

“You piss me off. What did you do?” Terasaka says, standing up. His fists are clenched. Apparently he had something resembling a thought that worked him up. Gakushuu has an idea of what it could be.

“Are you going to try to assault me?” Gakushuu asks. He’s well-established by now that he’s one of the best fighters in the class. He would say the best fighter in the class, but he’s humble enough to admit that Akabane might have the advantage in a bar fight where things like improvised weapons and dirty tactics were encouraged.

“I don’t know, maybe, why is Hazama upset? She’s never upset! The only thing that can throw her off her funk is her mom, and apparently  _ whatever the fuck you did? _ ”

“I said some unkind things,” Gakushuu says. Which is true, if an understatement. There’s part of him that’s proud at the evisceration. Any common hooligan can drop an expletive, cruelty takes craft. 

Terasaka deflates and flops on the ground, “Ah.”

“Ah? You’re not going to threaten me for hurting one of your gang members' precious feelings?” 

“I mean. I bet you still pulled a dick move. I’m not happy with you. But…” 

“But?”

“Did Hazama say something first?” Terasaka asks.

“Does that matter?” Gakushuu asks. They both know where Terasaka’s loyalty stands.

“Look, I love the girl. She’s the goth little sister I never wanted, but got anyways. But yeah, she can be really mean.”

“I’m surprised you would say that,”

“You can’t ignore someone’s flaws just because you like them,” Terasaka says, “you can’t care about part of a person. It’s all or nothing. If you can only love someone if you pretend that they’re perfect, you don’t really love them, you love your own delusion.”

“That seems… uncharacteristically wise,” Gakushuu says.

“Yeah, yeah, bitch, I get it, you can mean too,” Terasaka says, “...it’s possibly from an anime Takebayashi was watching near me.”

“I see.”

“That’s not the point, the point is, Hazama said something to you, you said something back, what’re you going to do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you sorry?”

“...I wanted to win. I was willing to accept collateral damage for that cost.” Gakushuu feels so pathetic. Transparent and pathetic. Like everyone can see what an empty vessel he is. He’s so tired of it.

“Jesus, get over yourself and apologize,” Terasaka says. “Why are you all edgelords? Sometimes people pull dick moves. You’ve got to get over yourself and move onto the next thing. If you fixate, and don't try to stop making dick moves, you just start doing crazy things, like justifying being mean towards middle schoolers as a good educational policy. 

…

“Here’s what I have. Okumura started off selling drinks at the farmer’s market, but popularity grew and has now opened two stores. The drinks are… cute, and photograph well for social media. Ishikawa makes artisan beauty supplies from natural ingredients. While we don’t particularly need to sell anything like that, perhaps we can trade some of our recently foraged materials for some sort of celebrity shout-out. Hasegawa is a caterer-- while we want to lean into the mountain theme, a surplus of ingredients could help us if demand reaches high enough levels. The main thing we have to offer is advertising, so we need to either convince them of our business acumen or really pull on their heart strings. I can do the talking, but I’ll need your support, Yada-san.”

“Asano,” Yada says, “...can you let me lead on our first one?”

Why should he let some academically underperforming girl take charge over him? “...sure. I didn’t mean to say I should lead  _ over  _ you, I just know that some people find talking to adults as business equals intimidating.”

She nods firmly, “Leave it up to me!”

…

“That was well-done, Yada-san,” Asano compliments after the negotiations have been completed, “I see now you meant a good cop/bad cop routine. Or, a tragic cop/business cop as you will.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” Yada says, “your business analysis sealed the deal. I’ve just been training to negotiate in this kind of way for most of the year, and sad middle school  _ girl  _ can play better than sad middle school boy to some people.”

“The part about your sick brother was truly inspired,” Gakushuu said. It was. She did the exact right amount of teary-eyed lip-tremor thing. If he hadn’t seen  Jelavić-sensei teach that exact method to win sympathy, he might have fallen for it too.

“...sure, inspired,” Yada says, looking away.

“Oh.”

“It is what it is,” Yada says, “you know, I was so frustrated at you during the beginning of the year. There are no extenuating circumstances at this school. Everyone in 3-E is there because they deserve it, regardless if they skip class to smoke cigarettes or to be with their brother during chemotherapy appointments.”

“I needed people to believe in their superiority,” Gakushuu says, “I needed people not to humanize the enemy. It's not so much that I believed it, more so that I wanted to win.”

“It didn’t work out for you, did it,” Yada says, not unsympathetically.

“No. It did for a little bit, but not in the long-term.”

“Would you do it again? Knowing what you know now?”

“I don't know another way to win.” 

“Do you think we’re going to win this?” Yada asks, “I mean, we did score some endorsements, but getting people up the hill is literally going to be an up-hill battle.” 

Gakushuu doesn’t say anything for awhile, but he does, at the last minute, find an answer. “Even if we don’t win, even if we just put up a good fight,” Gakushuu says, “it’ll drive the principal crazy that we didn’t roll over and die. Defeating him might be a hopeless battle, but spiting and annoying him is a worthy cause to fight for.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The age of majority in Japan is 20, not 18, but seeing as college starts at 18/19, I assume you can get some sort of emancipation then. Fuck tenses by the way, all my homies hate tenses.


	11. Chapter 11

Hazama wants to go on record that everything sucks and she hates it.

She’s not one for being “productive” or “doing work that doesn’t interest her” or really, “doing things” in general. But for once she feels a restless urge that cannot be immediately sated by writing fiction with thinly veiled commentary about the world and/or her mom. 

She wants to fix things. With Asano. But she’s not sure how, and also, he was a massive bitch, but also he’s always a massive bitch and also so is she, so what even is step 2 going forward on this? 

Premise 1: she’s not going to apologize.  _ He’s  _ the one who went and pressed the total devastation button. Hazama… has some regrets to the lead up, but. He could’ve asked her to stop, first.

(...if Hazama gives herself leeway because she’s aware of her intentions versus the outcome, and because she didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, then to be logical consistent she also has to give Asano the same credit, except for the incredibly pertinent fact that  _ she doesn’t want to _ )

Premise 2: people suck. It’s true! Just a universal fact. People are awful. She is a person. QED. Asano is a person. QED. Asano, she knows, agrees with this philosophy. Maybe they can come to an accord with this shared territory 

Premise 3: she wants this situation to be resolved. That implies closure. Although maybe Asano would be willing to go along with her usual strategy of pretend nothing ever happened and everything is fine? Food for thought.

She rolls over and screams into her pillow. She doesn’t feel much better 

_ Why can’t everyone be as simple as you are?  _

He texts back:

_!!! thanks  _

Then five minutes later

_ Wait _

She feels marginally better having made fun of Terasaka. Then, she feels marginally worse for feeling better.

Stupid feelings. Stupid Asano.

…

The gang, for once, is not working together. It feels weird, which bodes poorly for Hazama’s ability to cope next year. Itona is gathering berries, Terasaka is fishing. Muramatsu, of course, is taking the lead on the ramen cooking. He’s very excited to have his special talent be in play and has locked himself in the kitchen to experiment with flavors. She’s writing the menu descriptions, which is actually harder than it seems. She finds the most success in writing a sentence like she normally would, and then antonyming it up.

For instance,

_ The vile tentacles slide down your throat, you slurp slime, you feel writhing worms and are reminded of the mold in your first foster home. _

Becomes

_ You will slurp up these delicious acorn noodles, the home-cooked tonkotsu broth, made up of local natural ingredients, will remind you of the warm taste of home!  _

She’s working with what she has, okay?

She’s in the middle of figuring out how to describe fish in away that’s  _ appetizing  _ rather than “reminiscent of cosmological horror” when Yoshida sits down across from her.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” she says back, immediately on guard. Someone sitting down, across from her, wanting to initiate conversation? Highly suspicious. 

“Do you want,” he starts, looking aggressively uncomfortable, “to talk about your emotions?”

“No, never,” Hazama says, “why would you think otherwise?”

“I should rephrase that. You should talk about your emotions,”

“I’m not following,”

“Man, I don't know. Terasaka said you were in a bad mood. You clearly are in a bad mood and have been for a few days.”

“I’m always in a bad mood,” Hazama points out drily, “and if Terasaka wants to talk about it, he should talk about it with me.”

“Well…” Yoshida trails off.

“What?” 

“TerasakathinksithastodowithAsanosohe’stalkingtohimaboutit” he says really fast. Yoshida really is the natural born follower. Easily pressured.

“I’m sorry?” 

“Terasaka is talking with Asano because he thinks that’s the reason why you’ve been more withdrawn and less spooky and why Boy Wonder is more stuck up than usual.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Asano can’t lodge the stick further up his ass, that’s impossible,” she dismisses.

Yoshida raises his hands in defeat, “For what it’s worth, I think Terasaka has a point.”

“The third rule of the Terasaka gang is to never acknowledge Terasaka has a point,” Terasaka had pulled rank and wrote ‘be cool’ in permanent marker for the first rule. The second rule, quickly penciled in, was “no one give Itona a real knife.” The fourth rule, added by herself, was “be gay”, and after some debate, amended to be “be gay and/or do crimes” out of respect for their straight members.

Yoshida is the reasonable one out of the group. She sometimes defuses conflict by suggesting lunch options or making a roast that distracts the group, but Yoshida is their reasonable, level-headed ballast. So unfortunately, Hazama actually respects his opinion and stuff. “All I’m saying is, both of you seem to be in a bad mood in a time when we should all be working together. It’s normal friends to have rough patches.”

“I might’ve said something fucked up,” she admits, “quickly followed up by him saying something  _ really  _ fucked up.” 

“Either you’ll make up or, you won’t have to see him after March,” Yoshida says.

“Or we make up and we both die in March from our homeroom teacher destroying the Earth,” she says.

“All the better reason to make up sooner rather than later,”

“What if I just pretended nothing every happened instead of using my words?”

“Hazama no,”

“It might work,”

“I do not hang around this group to be mature. Go talk. I don’t know what happened, I can’t tell you what to say, but like. Use your human words.”

Out of spite, she starts chanting in Eth’kru, the cursed language of the Martians. Motorcycles are the one thing more niche than ramen making, so he can’t even pretend to find something else that’s productive to do.

But before he leaves, he gives her the stinger, “by the way, be… not mean to the kid. I mean, he’s a huge pain, and I don’t really care, but Takebayashi shared something that was kind of fucked up.

Damnit. He’s appealing to her curiosity. Stupid friends.

…

It’s the day of the cultural festival. Everyone’s excited, but also nervous. How humiliating would it be if no one showed up? What if too many people showed up-- are they able to pull off this restaurant thing?

They’ve all been dispatched to stations. Muramatsu and Hara are heading up the kitchen. Originally, the Terasaka gang, aka Home Ec Kings as they’ve referred to themselves, got kicked out for teasing him too much by pretending to add an extra pinch of salt to the broth, which according to Noodle Boy, would’ve fucked up the whole balance of the sauce.

Now, Yoshida and Terasaka wait at the bottom of the Mountain to help bring up guests. She’s on payment duty with Takebayashi.

You know, if they get paying customers.

Her and Takebayashi are just kind of. Sitting there. They watch the first few customers come in, order food, get seduced by Bitch-sensei, and run to an ATM to get more cash to buy more things from her. Takebayashi whistles. Hazama just hopes they really come back.

“Hey,” Hazama says to the nerd.

“Yes?” Takebayashi sighs. Slightly rude, but she does suppose she’s only doing this to get information 

“What did you show Yoshida that made him sympathetic to Asano?”

“I didn’t intentionally show him. I mentioned that the main campus had a forum and that my access had never been revoked after my transfers. He thought it would be prudent for information gathering purposes.”

“What information did you gather that Yoshida specifically thought I’d be interested in?” Hazama asks.

Wordlessly, Takebayashi hands over the phone. She looks at it and pauses.

“Ah,” Hazama finally says.

“Even for 3-A, it seems remarkably… unsporting,” Takebayashi says.

“Well, they lost Asano. They’re apparently making it up with spite,” Hazama says.

“I’m a bit disturbed the… new 3-A homeroom teacher allowed this,”

“I’m not,” Hazama says., “besides, the voodoo dolls are shitty quality anyways, they can’t do anything.” 

“I think if Asano-kun were to see them, it would accomplish a certain amount of harm,”

“Mhmm,” Hazama hums, non-committedly. 

“I’ve always admired Asano-kun. I felt that if my parents had him for a son, how happy they would be. But after my experience in main campus, my experiences became more mixed. I wanted to free him from the bonds of his father,”

“Yeah, you’ve come on… a little strong,” Hazama says, “besides, the dude is used to nerd lackeys.” 

“Indeed. I think your strategy was more effective.”

“I had a strategy?” it was news to her.

“I think Terasaka’s tactics have been remarkably productive at befriending us anti-socials,” Takebayashi said 

“Charge in like idiot with little to no plan and don’t give up?” 

“Indeed.”

…

Itona calls the class over. Apparently, they’re building off the success of the sports festival to continue to use the RC toy to spy on their opponents. 

All Hazama is saying is that they could use the drones to carry on a much more effective terror campaign rather than pure espionage. The class that’s not busy working crowds around the video feed.

Sugino sums it up for all of them when he says, “huh.”

What’s going on in the 3-A room is  _ profoundly  _ creepy.

The line goes around the block. They sell cheap concessions, like popcorn and soda to keep them sated. Everyone has a ticket, and about every ten minutes they announce a “prize” or a “contest” for people with certain numbers. The element of randomness and the frequent rewards keep the masses content.

Inside, there’s a variety of games, glorified slot machines, and raffles. The tickets stop working after an hour of getting inside, but they offer “reups” which keep people hooked. Hazama notes that all the clocks are covered. Everything is brightly decorated, the music is on a loop, with  _ ding  _ sounds chiming in from the machines occasionally. Despite the audio cues, they don’t actually see anyone win any of the prizes.

The prizes range from these little coupon books, extravagant game systems and other “donations” totally not from 3-A parents, and disturbing anti 3-E propaganda. 

Primarily against Asano (...the shitty voodoo dolls  _ offend _ her pride as a craftsman), but also, a few things featuring more prominent members of 3-E (a t-shirt with a “stylized” gorilla clearly meant to be Terasaka for instance), and shitty slogans about how much it sucks taking a hike and thinly-veiled references to social darwinism. 

“Wow,” Nakamura says, “just wow.”

“Are they okay? They don’t even seem to be having fun,” Kanzaki says.

“They’ve mimicked the most addictive parts of casinos, but cloaked it as “an arcade” to mask the sinister nature of their plot,” Korosensei says. “Crude, but effective.”

“Some of the games even pretend to be educational,” Itona says, “like answer these trivia questions to defeat the evil demons that have invaded the school,”

“Let me guess,” Hazama says, “the demons are meant to look like us.” 

“Karma is the final boss,” Itona confirms.

“Well,  _ i am  _ the most impressive member of 3-E,” Karma says, modestly, “is that game rigged like the others?”

“Yes,” Itona says, “the last questions are ambiguous so there’s multiple right answers.” 

“Great,” Nakamura says, “they make shitty propaganda  _ and  _ they can’t understand metaphors.” 

“I mean, I’m okay with the idea that I’m unbeatable,” Karma says, “although I’m surprised the final boss wasn’t Ace-kun over here.”

Asano manfully ignores Karma, “we always knew they’d have an easier time attracting guests than we would. We simply have to step up our game to win. I am going back to work.” Asano returns back to the kitchen.

Naigasa sighs, “I wish he would incorporate himself more into the class. This amount of hate would be hard for anyone to handle...”

Korosensei hums, “Hate is often the flip-side of love.”

Maehara frowns, “If girls loved me like that, I would’ve stopped dating awhile ago,”

“Didn’t you have a  _ letter-writing  _ campaign against you once, because you’re such an enemy to all womankind?” Okano asks.

“I have never had a doll made of me,” Maehara maintains, “that would be the crossed line.”

“You’ve never been _aware_ of a doll made of you,” Hazama says, “say, have you had any unexpected back-pain recently?”

…

They return back to work. She finishes out her shift. She goes inside to see if she can help, you know, the people actually doing the work in making the food. Asano is apparently mixing smoothies.

“Hey,” she says.

“...hey,” he says stiffly.

They both stop and stare at each other. A moment passes.

“--I’m sorry--”

“--I shouldn’t’ve--”

They both stop what they were saying. They pause, waiting for each other to continue. They stare. Asano gestures for her to get closer, and turns on the blender, giving them a bit of cover.

“...I have… regrets,” Asano says.

“Likewise. I have a proposal,” Hazama says. He motions for her to continue. “We both admit we fucked up, we agree to only give emotionally breaking speeches to our enemies, we don’t talk about our emotions regarding the incident,” 

Asano stops the blender. “If you want… we can sign it with a blood oath,”

“I could do a contract,” she says, “I won’t even take a magnifying glass to the fine print to look for the clauses which undoubtedly cause me to sign away my free will.”

“Or we could shake on it,” Asano proposes.

“Or we could shake on it,” Hazama agrees.

Asano hands are surprisingly warm. Actually, they’re a bit sweaty, possibly because he’s been working in the kitchen, possibly because, like her, he’s allergic to feelings. 

“Okay, I’m really glad you’ve worked whatever diabolic feelings you two had,” Muramatsu says, “but Asano, could you please finish that smoothie, it’s already overly blended.”

“It’s fine,” Asano says aggressively. 

Hara comes over to bring some sort of matcha donut topping for the drink. She also brings over two gold stars. Both her and Asano turn to blink at the girl.

“I’m proud of your progress in healthy communication,” Hara says. “It’s important to give positive feedback to children.” 

“Who even is this drink supposed to be for anyways?” Hazama asks. “The kids already left.”

“Oh, Naigasa is seducing some rich guy.”

“Is the pink supposed to indicate he’s gay?” Hazama asks.

“Oh, he’s pretending to be a girl,” Muramatsu explains.

“Of course,” she says, “that makes perfect sense.”

“We need to do something,” Asano says, “we’ll  _ lose  _ at this rate.”

“I really want to win for my pride as a ramen chef,” Muramatsu says, “but it really isn’t the end of the world if we lose.”

“How you people beat me, I do not know,” Asano grumbles.

“Today might’ve been slow, but tomorrow might be better,” Muramatsu advises.

“Based on what? Blind optimism?”

…

Hazama, of course, is not surprised when blind optimism wins out. Asano is genuinely shocked by the bullshittery of “that-guy-was-a-famous-food-critic”. 

“You didn’t even plan for this,” Asano says while working to scoop out ramen for the throngs of people waiting to be served. 

“3-E is beyond planning, probability, and all human comprehension,” Hazama says. 

She’s really, really glad they’ve got multiple people working payment.

There are hundreds. There are people ordering out  _ the entire menu _ . The attitude seems to be, this is a once-ever chance, so try everything while you can.

At this rate, they might… actually manage to beat 3-A.

Holy shit. Asano doesn’t curse, because of course he doesn’t, but even he’s muttering to himself.

Is that a news crew?

Holy shit.

“We’re even getting people who weren’t former assassins,” Hazama comments.

“Forget that, we’re getting Kunugigaoka students,” Asano says, “is that Seo’s ex-girlfriend? She hates 3-E. Wait, did you say assassins have been coming here? Like kill-people-for-a-living assassins?” 

“Who do you think was willing to walk up the mountain for food?”

“They should’ve ordered more,” Asano says.

…

Around 2:30, they shut down for a bit.

“You all need a break,” Korosensei says, “and we need to make some changes.” 

“What?” Muramatsu says, “the menu has been selling like crazy!”

“True,” Korosensei says, “but we’ve been depleting the mountain's natural resources. Every organism in this world is connected, and these have provided us with their gifts. I hope that through this school festival experience, you’ve come to realize how blessed you are, to be here, on this mountain, connected through fate and your bonds of friendship.”

“But we’re winning,” Nakamura complains.

“We’re not out of it yet,” Korosensei confirms. “Thanks to Asano-kun and Yada-chan’s acquiring of sponsors, we have used less than I was worried we might. We should switch over the menu-- say we’re sold out of the menu items that have rare ingredients and switch to more cakes and teas.”

“It’ll be false advertising,” Sugaya says. 

“Hey,” Karma says, “Yugi mentioned that we changed people's lives. We should just serve everyone with cake and a cheesy speech like Korosensei just did.”

They take lunch. They try a bit of the food, the leftover stuff which didn't evenly divide into fair portions. It’s a good vibe, everyone sitting outside at the tables, smiling. 

“You made up, right?” Terasaka says, “the level of bitchiness has gone down, I can feel it.”

“You’ve never felt a bitch in your life,” Hazama says, “but yes, crisis averted, you can stop motherhenning about your friend’s friend conflict.”

It’s getting into late November, but the sky is still bright and blue. This has been, Hazama notes, a remarkably successful venture. It might be the first sucessful thing they pull of where _everyone_ in the class contributed. If Muramatsu hadn't hung around Terasaka and gotten shitty grades, if they all hadn't used their skills in drawing or writing or cooking or manipulating people, this never would've been as sucessful as it eneded up being. 

Echoing her thoughts, Terasaka says, “This has gone pretty freaking great. Even you can’t think A class could’ve done better, right Asano?”

“I had a lot of confidence in my guitar playing,” Asano says, “but this has gone rather well.”

“More like fucking incredible!” 

“You would have more sucess in life,” Asano says, “if you talk like a civilized person.”

“What, like you don’t curse?”

“Cursing is the shortcut for people with limited vocabularies,” Asano says. He’s grinning, slightly. Like a little bit, one up-turned corner, but it’s there.

“One day,” Terasaka vows, “I’m going to get you tell the principal himself to fuck off,”

“Good luck with that,” Asano says.

They finish up their break. Everyone feels reinvigorated, despite being bone tired, they want to finish this off with their heads held high. Preferably, looking down on Class A after they trounce them.

Muramatsu turns on the stove again, they all get into their battle stations.

“Wait,” Asano says.

“What?” 

“The food looks off. There’s something different here.”

“It looks exactly the same, what are you talking about, man?” Muramatsu says.

“Hazama, could you…?” Asano asks.

She’s not really sure what he thinks  _ she’s  _ going to see. She’s not the anal-retentive obsessive who’s picked off on maybe a spoon being displaced. She comes over.

“Oh,” she says. Hidden in the green onions, there it is. “It’s poison,” she announces. “The food has been poisoned.” 


	12. Chapter 12

“Poison?” the class collectively shrieks, “POISON?”

“I’m not sure why you people are so surprised,” Karma points out, nonchalantly as ever, “this isn’t the first time someone’s tried to kill class 3E through food tampering.”

“It’s non-lethal,” Hazama clarifies, “probably.”

“What do you mean by probably?” Kurahashi asks.

“Paracelsus said the dose makes the poison...” Okuda, resident poison master quotes. “Is it that kind of situation, Hazama-san?”

“Mhmm,” she confirms, “it looks like very trace amounts of Veratrum leaves.”

“...isn’t Veratrum extremely poisonous, to the point of death?” Takebayashi, resident doctor, asks.

“That’s more Veratrum roots. This is a very small dose of Veratrum leaves. Additionally, the plant loses toxicity in the winter.” 

“So we aren’t being reverse-assassinated?” Terasaka asks.

“There’s no such thing as reverse-assassination,” Itona points, “unless you count saving someone’s life which I doubt is the motive here.”

“...how many people have ordered the entire menu at this point?” Asano asks, ignoring the banter around him.

“Thirteen,” Yada says.

“What are the symptoms of Veratrum poisoning?” Kataoka asks. 

“Nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, numbness, muscle tension, seizure, cardiac arrhythmia, cardiac failure, and death,” Hazama rattles off. “Additionally, if someone was going to sneak up here and poison  _ one dish  _ while they were here…”

“...they probably did something to the others,” Yoshida finishes. 

“I only recognized it because I grow it, and even then only after Asano pointed it out something was amiss.”

At that everyone turns towards Asano.

Asano rolls his eyes, as he explains, “Someone moved the containers that contained the fruit I was using for the drinks. I kept them at a diagonal, and they’ve all been rearranged to be straight. Additionally, someone’s thumb made an impression on a corner of one of the sandwiches the caterer made.” 

“If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t believe it,” Hazama says, “but you’re anal enough, and you saw the flower in my room…”

“Because it is him, I don’t believe it,” Karma says. “Hello? Only challenge between 3-A and 3-E, since Asano gets mysteriously demoted, and at the 11th hour, something like  _ this  _ happens? Do we really think that Principal Asano wouldn't stoop low enough to use his son as a double-agent? Ah, but we shouldn't be suspicous since a container was moved and you saw a flower once.”

“I have a good memory,” Asano says, face neutral, “and missing midterms broke my eight year number one streak. I could have crushed this cafe if I still was in class A sans poison. I wouldn't need this kind of trickery to defeat you.”

“Notice how none of his defenses are ‘I wouldn’t poison people’” Karma says to the class as a whole.

“I would poison you,” Asano says with a smile.

“Children,” Korosensei interrupts, “I truly don’t believe Asano-kun did this. He was an equal part of this class’s effort, and he was outside during the break. Luckily, you don’t have to take my word for it. I believe the people who poisoned us, are still on this mountain.”

Korosensei explained that they would have to go behind and around to get in and out of the kitchen to avoid detection, and that to someone unfamiliar with the mountain range, the process of getting off of the mountain without taking the main road was time consuming. Additionally, at the midway point, Korosensei had been inside the kitchen (getting seconds, naturally), and would’ve have notice in off taste in the food. Thus, the culprits had to have acted in the last 30 minutes, meaning “if you hurry,” the monster says, “you should be able to talk to them before they leave the mountain.” 

…

Half of the class stays to close shop, clean up and turn away customers. The rest of them go and try to track them down. The Terasaka gang splits up, only Hazama and Terasaka have high enough tracking scores to go. They want small, mobile groups capable of stealth.

Muramatsu, currently bemoaning his stolen guaranteed victory, does not qualify. Finally ramen was useful, for such a brief and fleeting time.

They start off together, but quickly they break down. Asano goes at a breakneck speed. Not more than ten seconds later, they see a flash of red. 

Karma and Asano have speed on their side. Hazama can see Terasaka itching to go catch up. He doesn’t have speed, but he does have stamina and that might help more, depending on where the posioners went. She's honestly a bit worried if they let the two top students stick together, they'll end up murdering each other instead of whoever did this.

“Go,” Hazama says. She doesn’t have speed or stamina.

There’s a flare gun for when they find who’s doing it. In the meantime, Hazama excels at stealth and blending in with the forest. She'll do that in case their opponets chose to blend in and wait to leave the mountain rather than simply flee. 

More time passes. She runs into Nakamura.

“Hey,” the blonde says.

“Hey,” she answers back.

Wordlessly, they start traveling together.

“...Do you think Asano could’ve done it?” Nakamura says, after enough time passes.

“Could have, definitely. Did, not a chance in hell,” Hazama says.

“Why are you so sure? Is it for the same reason he was in your room enough to recognize your flowers~” she says, implying something.

“I mean, yes, in that he was in my room because we’re acquaintances and I’ve learned enough about him to know he wouldn’t undermine his own efforts like this,” Hazama says, “if he was conspiring with 3-A, 3-A would’ve had a better cultural festival idea.”

“Didn’t Korosensei pair you with two boys during the test of courage? If only he knew about Asano, you could’ve had a full-on harem.” Nakamura says, ignoring most of what she said.

“Nakamura… I’m really not the boyfriend having kind of girl,”

“You’re pretty,” Nakamura says. Hazama’s heart flutters. Stupid emotions. Stupid straight girls. “You could have a boyfriend.”

“Well I’m a lesbian,” Hazama says, “so I could, but it probably wouldn’t be very entertaining.” 

“Oh,” Nakamura says. Hazama waits a bit, but it seems like just an oh. “Man, I keep on fucking up these days.”

“I doubt that,” Hazama says, mostly because she’s perfect.

“No, I do. I told Nagisa this whole speech about respecting his boundaries and his gender and then I immediately put him in a skirt,” Nakamura says, “that’s kind of fucked up.”

It was, in fact, kind of fucked up. “It worked in the end though, didn’t it? If that rich kid hadn’t written that blog post for us…” 

“I didn’t know that at the time though,” Nakamura says, “I’m such an elementary schooler, pulling pigtails...:” 

Hazama doesn’t say anything, but her mind does finish that sentence. Typically, don’t kids pull on pigtails when they like their victims? Should she despair that Nakamura apparently has a crush, or should she be cheered that if Nakamura has a crush on Nagisa of all people, maybe she’s not  _ not  _ attracted to girls. It has to mean something that she likes a guy who sucessfully passes as a girl with an outfit change, right? 

“Sometimes, we want to be better than we are. We want to change and our character gets in the way,” she says.

“Yeah?” Nakamura says.

“If we say we want to change, that’s something to commit to. Character takes time to change, but it isn't fixed. If we backslide, it just means we need to try again harder.”

“Yeah.” Nakamura sighs.

They continue on their way. Hazama is trying to stay focused on the poison. Was Nagisa prettier than her? Probably, considering she's never tried to be pretty in her life. Hm. Maybe she should start trying out that anti-frizz product her mother got her...

…

They rush over when a few minutes later they see the flare. By the tiem they get there,  Terasaka is holding Koyama up while cornering Araki, while Karma has Sakibara pinned a foot away. Araki shouts something in the forest, something about a bitch running away. Hazama can hear someone trip in the distance, so she guesses that's the Suzuki who's been previously mentioned.

Asano is standing there, and he looked  _ devastated _ . Hazama idly noted his lack of emotional range before, but considering her outward emotional expression tended to be “bored” or “scary”, she didn’t really make much of it.  Asano entered class E with that fake-prince smile. Asano put up with the Terasaka gang mocking with that fake-prince smile. Asano gave That Speech (™) to her with that ever-so polite, fixed, fake-prince smile.

Asano was not smiling. He didn’t even look wild-animal angry like he did when dislocating his own arm to one-up Karma. He just looked hurt.

Hazama, who thought the basis of their friendship was their shared sense of smug above-it-all-ness, latent homosexuality, and their lack of buy-in to each other’s bullshit, came to the realization that she too bought into the myth of Gakushuu Asano, top student, perfectionist. He wasn’t the kind of boy made for being hurt. At some level, she guesses she was exepecting him to be demoted, publicly humiliated, and apparently sabatoged by his ex-friends with a sense of poise.

Hazama, who usually ignored the school’s drama, found herself flooded with a killing intent. Cool! These people were going to die. A wave of protecrtrive instict washed over her. Shit, she really did adopt him.

“Why,” Asano said, not sarcastic, just genuinely confused, “would you  _ do this _ ?”

“We didn’t have any other choice!” Koyama wheezes. Terasaka shakes him a little bit.

“Not poisoning people costs about zero yen a year,” Karma says in a sing-song voice.

“Everyone makes an effort,” Koyama says, “but only the chosen are fated to crush hundreds underneath them.”

“Success is meaningless unless you’re the absolute victor,” Araki says.

“Take the time to teach 3-E a lesson,” Sakibara says from the ground, lifting his head to make eye contact with Asano, “one among them has been violating the school rules. Class E should regret that student’s behavior. Those who have been humiliated before… can you blame them for wanting revenge before next exam`? Isn’t that what you taught us, Gakushuu? Isn’t the penalty for drug use  _ expulsion _ not demotion?”

Karma takes the time to shove his head back into the mud, making sure to get his hair dirty. 

“I understand how… difficult it can be to be taught by that man,” Gakushuu says, “but--” 

“What?” Araki says. “The principal was right. Your victories were flawed, and look at you now. None of this would’ve happened if you lived up to your own promises.”

“Not all of us have drug dealers,” Koyama says, “or burly foreign friends. We’re doing what it takes to win. Isn’t that what you taught us?”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” Terasaka says. “All of you, shut the fuck up. Here’s a hint, dumbass, normal middle school teachers don’t encourage their students to poison their rivals  _ including his son _ . What the fuck is wrong with you people?”

“This is not a normal school for normal people,” Koyama says, “we’re exceptional. We do exceptional things. Those who can’t keep up with the pressure…”

“They should disappear,” Sakibara says.

“Some of us have turned our weaknesses into strengths, while others commit felonies to win a middle school cultural festival. Are you sure you’re keeping up with the pressure?” Karma says.

“All this talking,” Terasaka says, “can we please start punching?”

“No!” Asano shouts. “Don’t.”

“It’s okay, Asano,” Hazama says, “we can hurt them in ways that don’t leave marks.”

“The principal is looking for excuses to hurt class E,” Asano says, “such as expulsion. You shouldn’t make it easy for him.”

Terasaka drops Koyama. The boy falls onto the ground. “You know, recently I’ve been thinking 'bout things, regretting how I treated some people. I wish I treated you worse,” Terasaka says.

Karma gets up. Dusts off his hands. “Looks like you all get off consequence free, again,” Karma says, “that seems to be a theme with you people, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, we’ll be sure the lesson sinks in at finals.”

Not wanting to waste the possibly brief merciful mood of 3-E, the three stooges flee into the woods.

“Well,” Nakamura says, “that was a thing that happened.”

“You couldn’t have chosen smarter or more interesting minions, Asano-kun?” Karma says, “really, they didn’t even notice the chile pepper I threw on their hands.”

“Karma, why?” Nakamura says.

“I’m really hoping they go take a piss before washing their hands off,” Karma explains.

They make their way back to the classroom. Hazama tries to talk to Asano, but all she gets in is a hey before he runs off.

They explain things to their classmates. They help clean up. 

Terasaka takes stock. Muramatsu is crying over ramen. Asano is even bitchier and more closed off than usual.

“Alright,” he says as they go to leave, “secret base time.” 

…

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Asano says, “this is a rather poorly constructed shack.”

“Rule five of the Terasaka gang,” Yoshida says, pointing towards the sign, “don’t complain about the Terasaka shack.”

“Where else would you be?” Hazama says, “at home, with the principal? Be more like Muramatsu and let your friends cheer you up.” Muramatsu nodded, currently swaddled in a warm blanket, eating chocolate, clearly demonstrating the benefits of being comforted.

Asano doesn’t say anything, or outwardly make a clear expression. But he’s clearly doing something with his face. Hazama despairs how much time she’s spent learning this boy. When was the last time she even put a proper curse on anyone?

“Asano. We’re friends,” Hazama says. “You have had those before, right?”

“He’s had minions,” Itona says, “which are arguably more useful than friends.” 

“You can be friends with your minions, right Terasaka? We follow your orders, for some reason, and we’re your treasured companions,” Muramatsu says.

“You can be friends with your underlings,” Terasaka says, “but you can’t be friends with people who try to poison you.”

“Technically, they did not try to poison us,” Asano points out, “technically, they tried to poison our customers,”

“Wow,” Hazama says, “that makes such a difference. Anyways,  _ now  _ you have friends who won’t try to poison you. Probably.”

“I have as many friends as I need,” Asano says.

“He did summon foreigners to Japan for one day worth of physical activity,” Yoshida points out, “in what was possibly the shortest exchange program of all time.”

“It was supposed to last longer,” Asano says.

“Got too embarrassed and ran home?” Terasaka says, flexing. He was so proud of his role in that competition. 

“No, injuries,” Asano said.

Wait. She’d been reading for most of the competition. But, she remembers being frustrated how aggressive 3-A was and how unwilling 3-E was to cause similar damages.

“Injuries?” Itona says, echoing her thoughts, “we didn’t injure anyone.”

“No, you didn’t,” Asano confirms.

“Asano, who injured the exchange kids?” Hazama asks.

“The principal,” at their shocked silence, he continues, “they challenged his authority.”

“The principal beat up four teenagers because they called him, and this is just a guess here, a violently maniacal psychopath?” Hazama says, voice rising.

“He really doesn’t take parenting criticism well,” Asano says.

There is a moment of silence. Hazama is doing the math on Asano’s demotion. Yoshida and Muramatsu are exchanging looks. Terasaka has a resigned look on your face.

“Man,” Terasaka says, ‘your dad fucking sucks.”

“My parents would love you,” Muramatsu says. “My mom has basically adopted Itona, and he’s fucking rude as hell. You’re like, the platonic ideal of a teenage child.”

“Except for the drug use,” Asano says.

“Including the drug use,” Terasaka says. “I’m not sure why taking something you’re not supposed to is worse than dosing someone with something you’re not supposed to is, anyways.”

“Relying on others is weak. Perhaps if I made my own amphetamines, he’d have been more amenable.” 

“That is so fucking dumb,” Terasaka says, “the principal relies on teachers. He relied on the idiots to try to sabotage us. He uses that stupid ant metaphor all the time. How strong is any one ant? They do shit together, that’s how ants work.”

“What do you know about ants?” Hazama asks.

“I know that Kurahashi is cute and has lots of opinions on them,” Terasaka says, “but also, like, ants work together to carry shit or wage warfare. One ant can’t really do anything. A million ants can like, devour a person.”

“Really?” Muramatsu asks.

“I don’t know, maybe,” Terasaka says.

“Yes,” Asano says, distantly like he’s realizing something, “ants work together.” 

…

Asano shows up the next day. Hazama was worried. All five of them offered Asano to stay the night at their place-- Itona offered Terasaka’s place before Terasaka himself got the chance. But Asano denied them and all and went back to that place with Principal Asano.

Goddamnit, she’s like one more bad parenting fact away from filing the adoption paperwork herself. 

But Asano is there, and he seems fine during class. He told them that the principal doesn’t usually talk to him very much.

They got the results back from the cafe. First place, high school 3-A. Tied for second was 3-E and 3-A. According to Sugino, the word on the street were people wondering if 3-A could’ve won if they had Asano. The mood was rather dismal in 3-E though. They would’ve won, if they weren’t sabotaged. 

They finish lessons for the day. Right as they go to leave, Asano goes up and asks Isogai for something.

Isogai has the class quiet down. And Asano says,

“I need a favor, I need you to kill that monster.” 

There’s a brief silence. Terasaka and her share a fistbump. They’re down for some murder.

“Not literally,” Asano says. Whoops. “But I need you to kill his pedagogy. I need you all to utterly dominate 3-A.”

“You don’t want all the glory for yourself?” Kataoka says.

“If I defeat 3-A, it won’t mean much of anything. But if you all… if we could do extraordinarily well, to the point where even the worst 3-E student was keeping pace with the best 3-E student…”

“They might realize they should’ve been following you all the time instead of ousting you for your father?” Maehara says.

“They might realize that people like yourself, people who keep trying, people who don’t resign themselves to failure are stronger than people who have deluded themselves that they are destined for success.” 

“Living to crush other people, striving not for you own success, but for the defeat of others is stifling,” Asano says, “right now, I am sure that 3-A is suffering, not just because are being punished for failure, but because of the moral and emotional costs of winning the way my father teaches,” Asano bows his head, “please teach my father and classmates how to fail.”

There’s a certain amount of respect, for 3-E. For Asano, who always holds himself apart, as superior, to bow his head and ask the others for a task he can’t accomplish on his own, takes guts. Or, well, there was respect until--

“Ah, that’s why I fucking hate you,” Karma says.

“Pardon?” Asano asks.

“You’ve been pissing me off more than usual,” Karma informs him, “which is really saying something. I know why now. You’re not fighting!”

“What?” 

“Oh, sure, you’ll go along with what the class does, and blah blah perfectionist hates to lose, but you _personally_ aren’t striving for anything. When's the last time you came up with a scheme of your own without prompting? It’s like you’ve given up! You don’t need to worry about commissioning  _ us  _ to try hard. You should be worrying about your first place spot.” 

“I think I’ve been keeping up with you, Akabane” Asano says icily.

“Since when has your goal been keeping up? I want a rival. Not some sadsack who let other people do his dirty work and coast along with entropy,” Karma says, “I’m going to dominate first place. Let’s see if you can keep up then,”

Terasaka, Muramatsu and Takabayashi tease Karma about his score. Karma sucker punches Terasaka.

“Asano,” Isogai says, “We’ve always gone all out to try to beat you guys. Even now that we’re on the same side, we’re going to try to beat you. Forget about the ranking and whatnot after that. Isn’t the journey enough? We’re going to give our very best, so you can be proud of your rivals. What’s going on in 3-A… that’s incidental. We’re going to show them what we’re made of, regardless of what philosophy we’re defending or attacking. You should too.”

“I’m going to lead class 3-E to victory. And then I’m going to kick your ass. Worry more about the second one, alright? I’ve gotten better because of our rivalry. I’m excited to see how humiliated you’ll be when all is said and done,” Karma taunts.

“Fine,” Asano says, “obviously, I’m going to get first, but try not to cry when Terasaka scores better than you after the result of my tutoring. Red doesn’t suit your complexion.”

“Are they flirting?” Nakamura asks, “is this weirdly competitive nerd flirting?” 

“Honestly,” Hazama says, “I can’t tell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! Plot things are happening. For the record, Nakamura def implies she has a crush on Nagisa in the manga. Which, he is absolutely a dude, but it does give rise to speculation about her preferences, not in regards to male-female but masculine-feminine. 
> 
> There's only one more chapter of plot left, and then two chapters of epilogue. For the record, next week chapter probably won't come out on Monday, and will instead probably be later in the week. 
> 
> But Asano didn't argue when the Terasaka gang called themselves his friends, so really, that's the emotional climax already.


	13. Chapter 13

If it’s a challenge, then it’s a challenge. Glove has been thrown, pistols drawn etc. Gakushuu has this

“Alright,” Terasaka says, “time to hit Class A where it hurts.” 

“...didn’t you say that right before pole toppling and then Korosensei told us we couldn’t go for the balls?” Yoshida asks. Gakushuu frowns. He doesn’t particularly plan on having children, figuring that the cursed Asano bloodline should probably die with him, but well.

“Other place where it hurts! The grades!”

“We have a lot of work to do to get you in the top ten,” Gakushuu says. A lot of flash cards will need to be made. Should he buy more highlighters? 

“...what”

“Karma’s companions are usually himself, Nakamura, Okuda, and Shiota, correct?”

“Okay, first of all,” Terasaka says, “Karma doesn’t have a crew, except when it’s the entire class against someone.” 

“And then we’re his crew, kinda” Muramatsu says.

“You will need to share co-custody of the minions,” Hazama confirms.

“I clearly have Hazama,” Gakushuu says, annoyed, “and I’ve never seen Shiota work with you people.”

“That’s because we almost killed him,” Yoshida says. 

“What?” How many students have almost died this year, seriously. There have been some fatalities at Kunugigaoka, but usually in high school and usually… self inflicted. 

“We were bad at planning out assassinations,” Terasaka says.

“What?”

“Look, we’re not the plan kind of people,” Terasaka says.

“Or the thinking things through kind of people,” Itona says, “or thinking at all kinds of people.”

“Me and Yoshida think,” Hazama contributes, “we just don’t really voice our thoughts all the time since it’s funnier that way.”

“Obviously, I will take first place,” Gakushuu says, although he’s crosses his fingers in case the devil that Karma has on his side is listening, “but as reluctant as I am to admit it, Akabane is not unintelligent and Korosensei is not incompentent as a teacher, so there is a possibility of a tie.”

“Can’t you two just do extra credit?”

“Extra credit is the lifeline of losers. Leaders lead people. Although he has less minions, Nakamura is fairly intelligent and will likely place well.”

“She literally did better than you in English,” Hazama says. 

“Slow your roll, hotshot, the idea of the Terasaka gang placing in the top fifty is a bit of a stretch,” Terasaka says, “maybe keep your expectations---

“--lower, since our fearless leader thinks we’re dumb?”

“--small, since our fearless leader thinks we’re hopeless?”

“--mediocre, since our fearless leader thinks we’re, well, mediocre?”

“--realistic because I think none of us are what you call studious,” Terasaka says, ignoring the peanut gallery.

“Hara and Takebayashi are good students, although ancillary members of the gang,” Hazama fills in.

“Has Itona studied?” Muramatsu wonders. They turn to look at the boy.

“I study what’s interesting to me,” Itona says. Hazama gives him a fist bump. 

“I need you to be good,” Gakushuu says. “I need you to be great. That’s the only way---” he trails off. The rest of the gang gestures to carry on. “Absolute strength is the only thing the principal respects.”

“He tried to poison fifteen year olds because we were the wrong group of fifteen year olds to win a cultural festival,” Hazama says. 

“Strength, to him, is never losing. We can’t lose this. I am not sure what will happen if we do,”

“He’ll probably keep doing what he’s doing now,” Yoshida says.

“Hell, even if we win, that might be the case,” Terasaka says, “he doesn’t seem like the kind of person to take a loss well.”

They turn to look at him. Gakushuu sighs, “I’ve never seen him lose. But considering how well he has taken his surrogates losing and taking into account he is personally tutoring 3-A… if he wins this, there will be nothing that could discourage him or our classmates from the more extreme methods.”

“Forget discouraging his shitty school system,” Hazama says, “he tried to poison  _ you _ .” 

“Incidentally,” Gakushuu says. There were easier moments to poison him in particular. This was more him being acceptable collateral damage.

“Has he said anything?” Itona asks. 

“We haven’t talked.” They stayed as long as possible in the Terasaka Hideout last night. When he had returned home, the principal was in his study, working on future lesson plans. He was at school before Gakushuu woke up at 6. However, now that the results regarding the cultural festival were public, there is a decent chance of some sort of conversation tonight.

Asano is dreading it.

“Dad’s suck,” Itona says, “although Mr. Terasaka is rather decent,”

“Decent? My dad is the tits,” Terasaka says.

“Good for you,” he says.

“No, idiot, we just mean…”

“I know what you are trying to imply. I finish what I initiate. I do not run away. The principal and I… we have things we need to settle.:

“If you come back to school tomorrow with a black-eye, we’re burning your fucking house down,” Hazama says.

“Please don’t.” All of his stuff is there. All his study materials.

“Lower your expectations for our placements,” Terasaka says to the boos of the rest of the gang for his disturbing lack of faith, “but maybe we can finally throw Takebayashi a bone and go to one of his study sessions. We can’t be the ones to keep 3-E out of the top fifty, right?”

“I think one of us could give Koyama a run for his money in science,” Hazama says, “I mean, not me obviously, but I think Itona could give the four-eyed creep a hard time.”

“He’s not that bad,” Terasaka says, “or I guess, he wasn’t. The poison was kind of fucked up,”

“And he has relentlessly bullied you?” Muramatsu says. “Because he sucks?”

“If we had never met, and one of you was in class D, how kind would you be?” Terasaka says frankly. “Cuz I don’t think I would be that kind.”

“I wouldn’t poison people, or more importantly,  _ innocent ramen _ _ , _ _ ”  _ Muramatsu says.

“The principal is very persuasive. If you were left alone with him, I wouldn’t be so confident in predicting your future behavior,” Gakushuu says. 

“...are you sure you should go back there today?”

“I’ll be fine.”

…

Spoiler: it was not fine.

…

“You’re not eating your dinner,” the principal says.

“I am not particularly hungry,” Gakushuu says, “after all, I didn’t have the time tonight to make sure there wasn’t poison.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“You tried to poison me before,” Gakushuu says.

“ _ I  _ didn’t try to poison you. What kind of educator would I be if I poisoned one of my students?”

“The virtuosos are not creative enough to come up with that idea on their own,”

“Be careful, Asano-kun. Those are serious criminal allegations you’re making without very much proof,” the principal says with a smile. It’s the exact same smile Gakushuu uses when he wants to condescend to people. Gakushuu vows to never use it again. 

“All of Class E are witnesses,”

“Class E is full of delinquents. No reasonable authority would listen to them.” 

“Class E is going to wreck Class A in the finals. After all, you put your best student there.”

“Whatever greatness you have is mostly the result of having unique educational opportunities that, until recently, your fellows lacked.” 

“Class A couldn’t beat us in the cultural festival,” Gakushuu says.

“The super intelligent octopus won’t be taking a final for you. I’m not worried about you, Asano-kun. I expect you to place in the top fifty. I didn’t invest all this time in you for you to throw it all away in a year. You simply need a refresher course on your place.  _ All  _ of Class E needs to learn their place. Finals will be a great opportunity to do so. You will realize that my education is insurmountable. You will transfer back, humbled. I will keep you where you deserve: behind me, an example of what my education can do to elevate the obedient and a stern warning for any students who foolishly believe that they are better than my educational model-- if I’m wiling to demote you to the end class, what might I be willing to do to them?” 

“Congratulations,” Gakushuu says, “you have truly gone insane. Listen to yourself speak.”

The principal continues, ignoring what he said as per usual, “As for the rest of your friends, they’re spirits will be crushed as they see the utter futility in the sum of their efforts. After all this labor, they still couldn’t pass muster scholastically. They’ll finish, hope extinguished, the last Class E on the mountain. I am already using the money from the government to expand my educational model. Maybe if you’re good, I’ll let you participate in my scholastic revolution.”

“If you crush Class E that badly, won’t the earth explode before your model could be realized?”

“They’ll realize that they’re only hope of the future is the thug skills they’ve learned,” the principal says dismissively, “or if truly necessary, I will finish the job.” 

“That is not going to happen,”

“Isn’t that what you said before losing at midterms? Or losing at pole-toppling? Or Takebayashi transferring back? I wouldn’t underestimate me, Asano-kun. That’s what poor Kevin did after all.”

“What, are you going to beat me too if I talk back too much?” Gakushuu snarks back.

“I have never laid a finger on you,” the principal says, “I will never need to. I simply need to bestow my education on you once again. And if I have to reduce commoners like Terasaka-kun into the slavering dog he is at heart as a consequence, then I am merely doing society a favor.”

“Has the board heard you talk like this? It’s remarkable you haven’t been institutionalized.” 

“The board is excited about my ideas. You should see the plans they’ve approved. We’re still deciding the precise date to start building, but let me show you the blueprints.

Gakushuu has seen jails more humanely designed. These aren’t plans for a school, these are plans for cruelty against children.

“I guess we’ll see who prevails at finals,” Gakushuu says. He’ll win. He has to. 

  
  


…

  
  


“Here are the study outlines,” Gakushuu says.

“The outlines? Dude, these are  _ novels _ ” Terasaka says in disbelief. 

“They are only fifty pages, they barely go into any depth. It’s mostly an overview.”

“This will take a lot of time to study,” Yoshida says. Level headed, and, pointing out the obvious.

“Yes, but it takes time to be a top performer.” 

“We have… significantly less than a month,” Hazama says.

“I studied worse for longer when I was ten,” Gakushuu says.

“Yes, but your childhood was tragic,” Itona says. “I mean, so was mine, but I have video games and friends now.”

“If you succeed, there will be video games,” Gakushuu says, “and possibly friends. If you, there won’t be.”

“Aren’t you being a bit dramatic?” Hazama says.

“No. The principal plans on opening more schools modeled after Kunugigaoka. Except with worse facilities. He says a number of high schools are interested in these plans, which include VR learning/torture sesions.”

“Wow,” Hazama says, “no pressure.”

“Yeah, like if we didn’t have enough motivation to stick it to your asshole dead or your asshole ex-classmates, now we have personal stakes too?” Terasaka says in a teasing tone. “Relax, we want this badly too. But give room for the octopus to work his magic too, okay?”

“Fine, but if you also want to ‘shove’” he deploys air quotes, “it against Karma, those lesson plans are custom designed. There’s of course overlap, but I wrote notes for each of you.”

“Nice,” Hazama says, flipping through it, “you worked in knowledge of our interests?”

“Mhmm. As well as your learning styles. For instance, you are fairly well-read and have a wide pool of knowledge and references to draw from which can be utilized to get at least partial credit in all the humanities. However, you get discouraged easily in the STEM subjects, so a refresher on the building blocks that can be referenced cross-subject will be useful for you.”

“...why are all my notes about brute force?” Terasaka asks.

“You know why,” Muramatsu comments.

“Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot just cuz I am one!”

“I don’t think you thought that one through. But regardless, you are steady, hardworking and reliable. You may lack speed, but forcing you to try to solve problems improvisationally will just lead to you making stupid errors. Like an ox, it’ll be best to put your strengths into continuing on,” Gakushuu says

“Oh, okay.”

“He just called you a cow,” Itona points out helpfully.

“Shut up, Itona.” Terasaka says.

…

Korosensei is having the top students tutor the rest. Which is not necessarily a bad approach. Gakushuu helped 3-A frequently, and even delegated the virtuosos to act as tutors. It’s efficient resource allocation-- the teacher can focus on those truly struggling, and the top can make sure the middle keeps to task.

But in 3-A, he was the undisputed master in practically every subject.

Having finished second on the last test he took, he’s not quite sure why he has to fill out this English worksheet.

Nor, is he quite sure why he has to fill out the social science worksheet.

Nor is he sure why Isogai gives him his worst grades ever.

“Asano…” he says. He doesn’t sound mad, just disappointed.

“Ethics isn’t even on the curriculum,” 

“Really does explain a lot about this school, huh?” Isogai says. He gives him a sympathetic smile. Gakushuu swears he sparkles a little bit. Gakushuu, who  _ always  _ had been the number one hottie (there were polls, and once memorably, facial symmetry equations), feels a little out of sorts.

Gakushuu himself has been given the secondary teaching position in social studies, as well as in science.

He and Karma took turns running the math section.

“Bet you I can teach my section better than yours?” Karma says.

“I’ll take that bet. Practice test on Friday?” Gakushuu knows that Karma has “arranged” the sections in a certain way, so that Gakushuu had some of the… worse math subjects with him. Gakushuu knows that Karma doesn’t know he’s been tutoring Terasaka and his ilk on the side.

(their sections tie, with a score seven points improved from the beginning of the week. On the one hand, Gakushuu is happy that his teachings seem to be working, on the other, really Yoshida? You couldn’t have remembered units?)

…

“Are you literally making us spend an hour on the weekend studying studying?” 

“Yes. We’ll start with mind palaces, cover the pros and cons of flash cards versus highlighting and when to do which, and work on maximizing the potential of the best study tool: practice tests.”

“Takebayashi, you’re actually good at school, why are you even here?”

“The topic sounded fun. I’m ready to take notes.”

…

Principal Asano walks out while he’s studying outside. Gakushuu tries to study in different environments (it trains yourself against distractions, prevents complacency that can set in if you only learn how to take a test in one specific room) and he likes working outside while he can before it gets dark.

Principal Asano, about seven years ago, taught him how to study. How to push back past blocks, how to push yourself past the eye strain, the mental fatigue, treacherous desires for bathroom breaks and water which can push a student to distraction. Once he felt satisfied that Gakushuu could spend eight consecutive hours studying in a room, he let him outside to study for at least an hour a day.

“There will be times when you will need to work round the clock, but vitamin D deficiency can be distracting,” he said.

Gakushuu knows the principal is working similar hours. Actually, Gakushuu knows he’s working longer hours-- the man takes dinner in his study now. Principal Asano believed the ultimate person was well-rounded-- capable of defending themselves on the physical as well as the mental level--but he hasn’t seen the principal do his exercises or his katas in weeks.

Principal Asano sits down nearby. Doesn’t say a word.

Gakushuu walks away. 

…

Gakushuu is frequently early to class. He’s always on guard in his home and likes the chance to collect his thoughts.

When he arrives, Korosensei is in the room, preparing his lesson. Gakushuu nods in greeting, but Korosensei starts talking.

“Asano-kun, have I told you how proud I am of you?”

“...no, but it’s not particularly a surprise to hear that from my homeroom teacher,” Gakushuu says. Number one student in National Mock Exams tends to play well for resumes.

“I’m proud of the progress you have made,” Korosensei says.

“Far be it from me to deny praise, but have I actually done anything?”

“Oh-ho?” the unkillable teacher says, “is there something on your mind? It’s unlike you to demure.”

“Do you think I deserve redemption?”

“This is a bit heavy for 7:00 A.M, but your compatriots have seemed to forgiven you for past misdeeds.”

“Yes, but was it out of pity or duty or obligation? Most of what I have done in this class is help myself. Do I find moral absolution in a world where I wasn’t demoted?”

“Does it matter, considering you're in this world now?” Korosensei says seriously. He is unusually still, not a single wriggle. 

“I think so. After all, in a different world, I could still be my father’s pawn. Which means, how do I evaluate…”

“I see,” Korosensei says, and it really seems like he does, “you want to know if you can forgive Class A.”

“What they did was awful, but was it worse than anything I did? If I were there, would have I done the same thing? Considering my actions towards Isogai, I might have already tried to do something worse.” 

“We will never know who we were in different worlds. But if you’re asking if you’re worthy of a second chance, and by extension your ex-compatriots, I would say we are not defined by our first chances. The best apology is changed behavior. More to the point, I would like to think that there are good people who have done bad things and bad people who have done good things. Rather than weighing the scale I find it more prudent to simply try and accomplish a good thing. Just the one. And after doing that, I move on to the next one. If we look at a previous action, and decide it wasn’t a good one, there is little to be done but try to make up for it and try to do a different good thing,” Korosensei says.

“There are some people who cannot change,” he says. Principal Asano, fixed, immovable, barely a person. 

“If there are, I have not met them,” Korosensei says.

“I must be mistaken who signs your paychecks.” 

“He was a person before he came the principal,”

“Interesting hypothesis,” Gakushuu says.

“You have accomplished things already, in the month you have been here. I have never seen Hazama smile so much. And Terasaka’s grades are much improved. And Yada-chan has never filled her role as a potential leader quite as well as when she was working with you.”

“Those were all less than nothing,” Gakushuu says.

“Sometimes, the littlest things can make the biggest differences,” Korosensei says. Gakushuu doesn’t ask if he got all of his wisdom from American Fortune Cookies. He would probably eat the paper inside, anyways. “This is connected to a favor I have to ask of you,”

“Oh?”

“Please take tonight off!” 

“What?” Gakushuu says, “it’s the night before finals, I can’t slack now.”

“It’s not slacking, it’s recharging. I truly think you will be better if you spend your time reminding yourself you are not just a student,”

“My name literally means studying, you realize that, right?”

“You are not defined by a name someone else gave you. I thought we covered that on one of your first weeks here. Nor are you defined by how well you do on this test. Nor are you defined by how well anyone else does on this test. You have studied. You have worked hard. You should be proud, regardless of the result, because it is the product of your best effort. Whatever high mark you get or whatever mark 3-A gets… it doesn’t matter,” Korosensei says.

“You are incredibly wrong about that,” Gakushuu says. 

“Matter was the wrong choice of word. What I mean is, you will be okay. You will be able to be happy. You will experience more high-pressure stakes in the future, and I don’t want you to ever fall back into bad habits,”

“I’m not a drug addict. I haven’t taken anything in months and I’m  _ fine, _ ” Gakushuu says. His fingers only twitch sometimes and that might be the nerves anyway. 

“I believe it might have less been a question of craving and more of self-medicating,” Korosensei says, not ungently. 

“Despite my prescription, I really doubt I have an attention disorder,”

“No, but you might have anxiety”

“What? That’s preposterous. I’m fairly calm if we control for Akabane-proximity. I just… I needed a boost. It was ill-advised and I wouldn’t do it again,” Gakushuu promises.

“How many hours of sleep do you get versus the average recommended amount for a teenager?” 

“I am not your average teenager.”

“Yes, you are Asano-kun. You are just as human as the next person, with all the good and bad that entails.”

“I think I’ve had this talk before,”

“Sometimes things take multiple talks. I know that you will excel on this test and probably any future tests. I do not know if you will have a healthy mindset approaching the test. For strong individuals such as yourself, sometimes the person with the most potential to harm you is yourself. Please, take the night off. Review for an hour or two if you must, but whether or not you have studied enough-- tonight won’t make the difference. Whether or not you’re refreshed enough might depend on some carefree time.”

“...no promises,”

…

“...are we sure this is edible?” Gakushuu asks. He pokes at the limp fries. He honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it contained about as much plastic as vegetable matter.

“Stop being a prissy bitch,” Terasaka says. He’s gone over their last minute questions, they did cursory cumulative review. It’s 2100 and they’re all delaying, as if staying up late can delay what’s coming tomorrow. 

“Please identify which part of the chicken is the nugget,” Gakushuu says.

“They spelled chicken with a k,” Hazama says. “I think it’s a stretch to assume that it came from an animal:”

“And yet, still tastier than Muramatsu’s gross family ramen,” Itona opines.

“I’ve seen you eat four bowls of that in one sitting,” Muramatsu says.

“There are desperate people everywhere,” Itona says, “which might be in my speech at Terasaka’s wedding.”

“None of you people are getting an invite to my wedding,” Terasaka says. “Not a one.”

“I think not inviting people like me to your wedding is how most fairy tales start,” Hazama says.

“It’s an empty threat,” Yoshida says, “Terasaka needs three people to go to the bathroom with him, he can’t plan a wedding without us.”

“I’m well-behaved,” Gakushuu says. Hazama throws a straw wrapper at him and mouths ‘Isogai’s cafe’. 

“You’ll be too polite,” Terasaka says, “and then my bride might be like ‘oh, why can’t you be more like Asano;”

“Glad you’re giving yourself an inferiority complex about a woman who doesn’t exist,” Hazama says, ‘that seems really healthy.”

“I gave up on health when I started on these nugs,” Terasaka says.

“I need you to survive, without food poisoning, until at least tomorrow.” Gakushuu says

“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow,” Hazama says. She would be the type to like Hamlet.

“They all die in that,” Gakushuu says, “Hamlet may be prepared to face death, but all of his friends and family are dead and his kingdom is conquered.”

“How has this group gotten more morbid since you’ve joined?” Terasaka says to no one.

They continue sniping at each other. It’s odd that he finds this, well, relaxing. This would have never happened with the Virtuosos. Gakushuu would have never allowed that level of insubordination. But he’s not a leader, here, or a savior, or a minor deity. Not even a cult leader. There are times where he misses it-- he’s vain, alright, the ego stroking felt good. Feeling like he could accomplish whatever he set his mind to felt good.

But here, in this dingy knock-off American fast food chain, he feels surprisingly okay. He breathes easier. He’s nervous about tomorrow, sure, but it feels more manageable in this second. This is not what he once had, not as glamorous, not as impressive, but. Still good. He knows that if the person he was a year ago he could see this, he’d be horrified. 

But he’s not that person anymore, and he knows this by the fact that he’s not going to pull an all-nighter tonight. He’s not going to take something to boost his productivity. He’s not going to bring in ringers, he’s not going to play any wording tricks or write any contracts.

Tomorrow he’s going to take a test. It will be fine.

…

“You’re up early,” Principal Asano says at breakfast.

“And you’re here unusually late,” Gakushuu says. Ever since the Cultural Festival incident, he’s adjusted his schedule to get breakfast the first moment after the principal has already left for school.

“Well, I wanted to wish you good luck on your finals. I would have done it last night and left at my usual time, but you weren’t in your room.”

Ah. That’s what it was about, “I went out to study with some friends.”

“So late?”

“We grabbed a late dinner.”

“I didn’t realize Class E’s curriculum moved at the pace where you would need other people’s help to understand it. Were you with Takebayashi-kun? Or that Kataoka girl?”

“I was with the Terasaka gang,” Gakushuu says. He puts his utensils down.

“Ah. So you gave up on studying?”

“I wouldn’t phrase it as giving up.”

“Really? Because it doesn’t seem like to me you’re preparing to give your best fight. I had hope that your demotion would be a wake-up call, so you would stop smugly assuming you are strong. Instead, you gallivant with delinquents on the night before the most important test of your life. I didn’t think I raised the type who lost at things.”

“If you met Hazama, you would know that she has never gallivanted a day in her life, with or without me. I am still the top student at Kunugigaoka. I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I did not spend all this time teaching you to be weak.”

“You taught me language. And my profit on it is--I know how to curse. I think I will make my way to school now.” He thanks the housekeeper and leaves. 

…

Finals… are a thing that happens. Depressingly, the best part is all of his former classmates hyping themselves to destroy him and the rest of the class. It really only ever goes downhill from there.

…

Gakushuu has literally never taken a test this hard and he took college level tests in the sixth grade. The wording is dense and confusing, the questions require leaps of thought and ridiculous applications of knowledge. 

They’re all exhausted after the first test. Gakushuu thinks he did well, although there are always parts of English that are subjective depending on the grader.

Yoshida gives him a thumbs-up in the short break period. He remembers that he was the one who needed a refresher on the pluperfect which appeared on the test twice.

He gives a thumbs-up back.

…

All the tests are hard. He thinks he does well-enough, but he did lose seven points on his last cumulative exam, so maybe he shouldn’t get too cocky. If he loses points, he’s not sure where. Until the math exam. After that, he knows what will be the problem area.

20 questions, 50 minutes. 2.5 minutes per question. Generally, he finishes math with time to spare to check over his answers. And this is a test where an additional look through could seriously help. He really hopes the rest of his classmates listen to what he and Karma said when drilling them-- partial credit, triage.

He does not check over his work because he spends  _ fifteen  _ minutes on the last question.

He approaches it first as a simple maximizing volume question. Three triangular pyramids and a hexagonal pyramid. Of course, he also has to do some algebra…

But something strange happened halfway through the problem. He loses focus. He hears a grunt from Terasaka and thinks  _ I hope he remembers our review of brute-forcing combination problems _ .

And then he thinks  _ I’m glad Hazama got to show off her proficiency at proofs _ .

And then he thinks about all the ways he taught all of them-- not just Terasaka and Hazama, but Itona, Yoshida, Muramatsu, Hara, Takebayashi-- every trick in his rulebook. 

He always thought that math was a matter of intimidation. It looks the most foreign of the subjects from the things we see in our day to day life. It was different, so it was scary. There are wrong answers, and people are afraid of being wrong-- of being bad. But if you break it down, you realize that all of math is made up of smaller, simpler parts. If you can keep calm, see clearly, and think flexibly, you can dominate math instead of letting math dominate you.

And all of the sudden he realizes the problem was simple. He didn’t need to find the area of the entire box-- just one cube, which he could then use to piece together the whole.

He came to that Eureka moment with about one minute left. He jot down his answer, barely writing the four before the proctor called  _ time _ .

...

At home, Principal Asano asks him how finals went. 

“Fine,” he says.

He doesn’t realize that’s the last normal conversation the two of them will ever have.

...

They are all understandably tense in the morning. 

This is quite possibly the most important test of his life. That might seem like melodramatics, considering college entrance exams/college exams/professional certifications, but he is the person who has to live with Principal Asano.

And who has to live with Class A if he fails. They will never be anything more than what Principal Asano wants if they don’t beat them here and now. 

Korosensei doesn’t waste time.

“We’ll see if your second blades hit, but let’s focus on the first thing first-- the top fifty. Terasaka-kun, normally the worst student in Class E ranked 37. All 29 placed among the top ranks,”

Cheers break out across the classroom. Asano breathes out a sigh of relief. Class E has once again triumphed over 3-A. But this time, he was on the right side.

“I’m not surprised,” Nakamura says, “bloodlust can only get you so far. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Wanting to kill us couldn’t push them all the way through.”

“As for the second matter you might be concerned with, top student,” Korosensei says, “it came down to the final math problem, but I’m proud to announce that Karma Akabane got the lone perfect score on the exams.”

“Wait,  _ what _ ?” Gakushuu says.

“Boom! Suck it, second place,” Karma says. “I’ve finally shown who’s the smartest around here.”

“Wait,  _ what? _ ” Gakushuu says, “Where did I lose points!?”

“Asano, you literally told me about six different questions you were worried about,” Hazama says. 

“But I thought he’d do badly on them too! I’ve been studying for this test all year, where did I lose… .5 points? I got 499.5 points? What…” Gakushuu says.

“You forgot your units on question 20,” Korosensei helpfully informs him, “but I was proud of how you handled the question, you originally were going on a much more time-consuming process before realizing there was a simpler answer before you. With more practice on this kind of out-of-the-box thinking, you’ll get faster with more chances to perfect it.”

“I…”

“You were so overjoyed about having friends,” Hazama says, as the person who got the play-by-play recap of how he thought each question in the exam went, “that you forgot about basic rules.”

“Suck it second-place!”

“You have got be fucking kidding me,” Gakushuu says. Terasaka beams with pride at the curse. “I was going to destroy my father’s educational philosophy, only to be foiled by  _ units _ ?”

“I mean,” Karma says, “I probably demonstrate the case for Class E stronger. If you won, they might be like ‘oh, well of course Asano did well, he’s a genius’ instead of crediting Korosensei and all the people they looked down.”

“I have only been working at defeating my father my entire life,” Gakushuu says, “and I fail, because a delinquent remembers to put  _ units  _ and I don’t?” 

“You didn’t fail, you just failed to live up to my awesomeness,” Karma says, “I’d hardly be a good rival if I never beat you. Now you have first term finals, I have second, and all I’ll need to next completely destroy you in every academic contest for three years to prove how much better I am than you.”

“Enjoy your victory while it lasts. Because it will be your last,” Gakushuu has never forgotten units before and he never will again. 

He and Karma continue sniping while the rest of the class looks over their results. Then, there’s a knock at the door. Korosensei goes out the window, and Kataoka goes to answer.

“Oh,” she says, “it’s you. What do you want?”

She steps aside revealing Seo, Koyama, Araki, and Ren. Breathing heavily.

“Well?” Kataoka says.

“Wa-- wait just a second-- catch our breath,” Koyama wheezes. 

“Running here… might have been… ill-advised…” Araki pants out, dramatic as ever. 

Wait, ran here? None of them ever ran anywhere. Gakushuu didn’t even know that they could run in a line, did they run up the mountain? He checked the clock. If they spent ten minutes in main campus, and then made their way up there, they would have had to sprint at a fairly fast pace…

The Four Virtuosos stand up. Look awkward. Koyama elbows Ren, says something about “you’re the one good with words”. It’s probably meant to be a whisper, but Gakushuu can hear it from the back-row. 

“Two things,” Ren says. First, he bows. The other four virtuoso bow with him. “We’re sorry.”

“Huh,” Nakamura says, “I didn’t think we’d ever hear that.”

“We”re sorry,” Ren repeats. “We’re sorry for how we treated to you, we’re sorry for how we acted towards you--”

“You mean, sorry for that whole poisoning us thing?” Hazama says.

“Yes. We’re sorry for the poison, we’re sorry for the pole-toppling, we’re sorry for the mid-term bet. We’re sorry for every cruel thing we are complicit in, every small and large thing,” Ren says, sounding genuinely contrite. “And… we’re especially sorry to you, Gaku… Asano.”

“Ah,” he says.

“I don’t know if I have words for how much we regret how we treated you. Like usual, you were the strongest of all of us. Your… the principal has a way of making his ideas seem very appealing. But your ideas were better. We hope you consider coming back, and leading us again.” 

Koyama chokes up. Gakushuu thinks there are tears in his eyes, oh no. “Of course. I understand what it's like being Principal Asano’s pupil. It took prolonged exposure for the flaws in that man’s ideology for me to overcome it.” 

“That’s no excuse,” Ren says, “better people wouldn’t have done what we did. They wouldn’t have believed, like we did, in the horrible things we were saying about one of our best friends.”

_ I might’ve _ . Gakushuu thinks.  _ If in September, my father told me to make Ren a pariah, I might’ve. Not without incentive, not without my doubts, but if Principal Asano told me I couldn’t, that he’d punish me if I didn’t, that he’d reward me as I deserved if I did, I might’ve _ .

_ But,  _ a voice in his head whispered, new and unusual,  _ if he told me now to hurt my best friend, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do that to Hazama. There is partial credit for growth, even for me _ . 

“Not that this isn’t touching,” Karma says, “but didn’t you say there were  _ two  _ things?”

“Apology for us, apology for Asano specifically,” Isogai says, “that adds up to two,”

“No, we meant apology as one thing. The second thing we wanted to tell you was your dad’s pissed, Asano”

“Of course he is,” Gakushuu says dismissively, “we just destroyed his entire life's work.” 

“...we told him we wanted to transfer to Class E,” Araki says.

“No,” Terasaka says.

“Oh,” Gakushuu says, “that may have put some salt in the wound.”

“He’s… really pissed,” Ren says, “we heard him making some phone calls, and… well, you know how Fujito’s mom is on the board? Apparently, he had them approve some deeds and---”

That’s when the front half of the classroom was demolished. 

…

‘What happened to the classroom!?” Okano shouts.

“Oh,” Principal Asano, “the board approved the immediate transfer of this class to our new facility. You’ll finally be able to study like my model intends-- in a prison like environment. This building is to be demolished.”

“No,” Korosensei says, “I won’t have it. We’re finishing the semester here.”

“Your semester is finished here. You’re fired.”

“I’m glad to know you’re as gracious in defeat as you are in victory,” Gakushuu says. “You have lost. Your system’s flaws have been exposed.” 

“You’re lecturing me after you lost? I thought you understood-- every battle is a battle to the death. That’s why you have to keep fighting. You can’t _ ever  _ give up.”

“I did not lose today. Actually, I’m done losing. I’m done playing your games. There are ways to succeed without megalomaniac dominance and--”

If he hadn't spent the last six weeks being trained every day by a military commander, he might not have blocked that backhand. Gakushuu smirks. 

If he had longer than six weeks, he might have blocked the undercut that wipes the smirk off his face.

He goes with the momentum, is flung backward. He catches himself on the desk-- it’s a bit awkward, but it’ll have to do.

He feels his smile grow. Asano Gakuho looks down at his hand, like he’s confused how the blood got there. The blood of his son who he punched across the room in front of about 35 witnesses.

He can’t help it, he laughs.

Everyone’s still, everyone watching.

It’s funny, he has spent his entire life contextualizing his relationship with his father. It wasn’t normal, but Gakushuu wasn’t normal, and it’s hard for him to say if he would have worked as hard to be so exemplary without that external motivating factor. But he knew, even at nine, that he couldn’t repeat what his father told him or mention the consequences for doing badly on a test. But he thought, back then at least, that a child hiding a father’s actions didn’t necessarily mean abuse.

After all, abusive parents hate their children. They hurt them, physically. Abusive parents can’t handle strong or rebellious children so they hurt them until they stop. Asano Gakuho encouraged his son to fight back, to talk back, against him. Asano Gakuho would never do something as pedestrian as hit his child, because that would be bad pedagogy, and fundamentally Gakuho didn’t care enough to.

It was very difficult at eleven to understand. At fourteen, it’s simple. 

“Did something malfunction? You lost your temper and hit your son. Finally, I see you acting as a father,” Gakushuu says. He never cared about the challenges Gakushuu issues or his attempts at blackmail, but he cares about this, enough to stop being an educator and start being a fucking horrible parent.

The spell breaks. Hazama rushes to his side.

“I’m fine,” he says, waving off her attention.

“No,” she says and lifts him up. “You need first aid to make sure your nose isn’t broken, and I don’t want you to watch Korosensei kill your father,” 

“What?” 

She swings him around to see a frankly scary pitch-black Korosensei. 

Gakushuu sees now the mach-8 creature that might destroy the earth. Korosensei always struck him as a bit, well, goofy. Like a children’s cartoon. There is nothing amusing about this creature. “You do not,” the monster utters, “hit one of my students.”

There’s some poetry to it, Gakushuu supposes. His homeroom teacher who arguably might be his primary nurturer, (which, considering he’s known him for about two months, is depressing) becomes less human while protecting him and his father becomes more human while hurting him. 

“You’re not a teacher anymore-- unless,”

Hazama helps carry him out, arm around her shoulders as Asano Gakuho explains a rather convoluted teaching mechanism/game thing.

“I want to watch,” Gakushuu tells her.

“You let that second punch through, you  _ chose  _ not to dodge” she says, “you’ve lost deciding rights. It’s fine, Terasaka is recording it.”

“What if he wins?”

“Korosensei won’t lose,” she says firmly, “your father is a fraud and a wackjob, and I don’t care how smart he thinks he is, he already lost.”

Ren comes up. Whoops, he almost forgot that the four virtuosos were still there. “I can carry him,” Ren says.

“Nope,” Hazama says.

They follow along slightly puppyish, as Hazama goes through the hole. Terasaka, leaning on the window, provides updates, as Hazama dots up the blood and checks his nose.

The rest of the class gathers along shielded away from Asano Gakuho’s grenade plan.

Terasaka gets a math question right. Gakushuu feels inordinate pride as he works out exactly how rigged the game is.

“His favorite games are the ones where it's impossible to win,” he says.

“If you asked me a week ago, I would’ve said  _ all  _ of Class E placing in the top fifty was impossible,” Araki says. 

“Also,” Seo says, “will someone explain what the fuck is going on? Why is the teacher an octopus!? What’s with all the assassination talk!?”

Gakushuu makes eye contact with Karasuma who nods. It looks like someone else will take care of that. 

“First workbook is a hit,” Terasaka says, unnecessarily as the pellets fly through the window.

“Shit,” Gakushuu says, ignores the small gasps of the virtuosos who have never heard him curse before, “why is he even agreeing to the farce?”

“It’s a pretty clever assassination plan,” Nakamura says, “probably the best odds of everything we’ve done so far.”

“Superhuman as he is,” Karma says, “He won’t kill our pet octopus. Korosensei wants to kill Principal Asano as a teacher as much as the other way around. He wants to finish out the year here,”

“He’s going to get himself killed. The principal wrote half those books. There are no educators like the principal,” Gakushuu says.

“None like Korosensei either,” Hazama says.

This theory gets proven when it turns out that Korosensei has memorized every workbook in Japan.

“And a few outside,” Nakamura says.

“--is the principal losing a direct challenge?” Gakushuu says, incredulous. He’s not surprised that he could lose a proxy fight. But to lose a war, not fought with teachers as generals and students as pawns, but a one on one fight to the death...

“He lost before it started,” Kanzaki says, “if he left Kunugigaoka, we’d follow him. We’d learn in the wild. We’d follow him wherever he went.” 

“You’ll be pleased to know,” Korosensei says, taunting Asano Gakuho, “that even your son’s assassination plan had better odds. He never underestimated me and challenged me to a fight that played to my strengths. One last grenade.”

“Be a man,” Yoshida says, “and admit defeat.”

“You have to be prepared that any fight could be one to the death,” Asano Gakuho says. Gakushuu’s view is hidden from the action, but he has a bad feeling.

“No!” 

He goes up to the window and finds that his father is alive, if covered in mucus.

…

There’s a speech about similar styles of teaching methods, and how they’re more alike than it seems blah blah, and some stuff about teaching “to thrive, not survive,”

Gakushuu thinks it’s all bullshit.

(Although the speech ends with a tentacle curled on  his father/ the principal/Asano Gakuho that man and Korosensei saying “if you ever hit Asano-kun again, I will personally end you”) 

Gakushuu makes his way down the mountain.

“I just want some time by myself,” he says. “Clear my head.”

“How about we do something later? We could go somewhere. Celebrate Terasaka not being deadlast for once.” Hazama says. The Virtuosos are currently getting mind-wiped, which is apparently a thing that can happen. 

“Sure, I’ll meet you at the base of the mountain. I just want some time to think.”

About ten minutes in, because he really hasn’t gotten what he wanted this year, that man approaches him. His tie is crooked and Gakushuu doesn’t know if that’s ever been true before. He approaches slowly, with his hands in his pocket, like Gakushuu is some wounded animal. 

Which isn’t the worst comparison. Humans are mammals, his nose may not be broken, but there’s still blood and bruises, and he feels like if that man gets any closer he’s going to bite off his arm. 

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“If it comforts you, my victory was only partial. Ren says I’m still in the top five hotties for Class A, but my wounds disqualify me for premiere hottie status in Class E,” 

“I acted rashly. You deserve an apology.”

“For what? Hitting me? Getting my old classmates to drug me? Demoting and humiliating me in front of the school? Beating up my friends? Making me your accomplice in emotionally abusing students? Being the world’s shittiest father?”

“Yes,” he says, “and more.”

“I always thought when you lost, it’d be… it’d be like the seas parting. Something monumental. But you’ve lost completely and utterly and all I feel is tired,” Gakushuu says. “I always thought you were the devil, but you’re just some shitty person. Is there anything you can say to make this better?”

“No. But… I want to get better. I will be better, from now on. As a teacher and as a father. There’s… quite a lot I have to improve on.”

“I guess you can’t do any  _ worse _ ,” Gakushuu says. “You haven’t been a father to me since I was six.”

“There was a student named Ikeda--”

“I know about Ikeda, already.” Gakushuu says, “there was a newspaper article. I realized around twelve that there was probably a reason why anyone would have such a maniacal attitude. I just want to know what possessed you to think all this was a good idea.”

“I thought if I made you strong enough, nothing could ever hurt you.” he says, “that it was the goal of a teacher to save as many kids as possible.”

“You hurt me,” Gakushuu says. It’s the hardest thing he’s ever admitted, but it true. Self-consciously, he puts a hand up to his swollen jaw.

“I’m sorry,”

“It was the novel the first time, but now it’s just getting strange. The best apology would be changed behavior,” Gakushuu says.

“Okay,” his father says, “I’ll change.”

They reach the bottom of the hill. The Terasaka gang, who went the direct route instead of Gakushuu’s choice to go a way where he wouldn’t encounter any people, wait at the bottom. 

“I’m just-- going to walk back to where the driver is,” his father says. Probably wise considering the death glare Hazama’s giving him and the slow throat cutting motion Terasaka is doing. 

“Did he say anything?” Hazama asks.

“He apologized,” Gakushuu says.

“That bastard,” Hazama mutters.

“I really am fine,” Gakushuu says.

“How would you react if someone hit me so hard I flew into a desk?” Hazama says.

“I would be… not pleased,” Gakushuu admits. “Can you all just… pretend you didn’t see all of that?”

They exchange glances. Some are looks of pity, which would once rankle him. But frankly, he lost to Karma, he got hit in the face by a middle aged man in front of everyone, and he almost saw his father die. Some pity is not the worst thing.

“Sure,” Takebayashi says, “we didn’t see a thing.”

“My mom said we could have a sleepover tonight,” Terasaka, “you know, to celebrate finals,”

“I can’t come to the sleepover,” Hazama complains.

“I don’t want to tell my parents you’re a lesbian, they talk to your parents, and I’m not sure they know what a lesbian is,” Terasaka says.

“I mean, they apparently think I’d get frisky with one of you while all of you stayed in the same room,”

“Maybe Terasaka’s parents think he’s the type to have an orgy,” Gakushuu suggests.

“Let’s go somewhere we can all go, have a dessert or something. Celebrate,” Yoshida says.

“I know a place,” Takabayashi says.

And that’s how Gakushuu’s day ends. At a maid cafe, the one person at the table not blushing at the young girl who keeps bending over to pick up dropped objects. There’s a tissue up his nose, and he can feel a bruise swelling under the bandage that Hazama placed, and he doesn’t think he’s ever laughed harder in your life.

“Hey,” Hazama says over the check, “be honest, how surprised would you be if six months ago, someone told you that you’d be at a maid cafe with the worst delinquents Class E has to offer.”

“Presumably, this note might also tell me about a moon destroying octopus teaching us assassin skills that defeated my father in an education contest,” Gakushuu says, “although I might still find this part the most disturbing.”

“Yeah,” Hazama says, “our lives are weird.”

“Weird can be good,” Gakushuu says.

“Yeah. Weird can be good,” Hazama says and smiles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, this took much longer than intended. But it's twice as long as usual and the stories wrapped up now! The last two chapters will be (short) epilogues-- one for the rest of the year, one for ten years in the future. They should really be one chapter but I hate doing same-chapter perspective changes. The story's already concluded, I just really like epilogues. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I really like Asano joining Class E stories for obvious reasons (it's about the catharsis/the author's semi-transparent love for emotionally incompetent men hypercompetent in one area and their thin facade about every other life area).
> 
> I'm playing light and loose with timeline. And character. And like, Japan. It's going to update at least weekly, it's going to have Asano FINALLY having a female friend. Good shit.


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